Alexander "the Great" Hamilton: The Indispensible Aide

The following talk, based on the New-York Historical Society's exhibit of Alexander Hamilton, was delivered on August 1, 2006.

Given the esteem in which I hold my colleagues from Aquinas College and Calvin College, I am proud to conclude this series on Alexander Hamilton -- based on the exhibit by the New-York Historical Society, organized by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, and hosted by Spring Lake District Library.

Who is this man with the sharp eyes and chiseled nose on our $10 bill?

Jason Duncan opened three weeks ago with an overview of Hamilton’s “strange and amazing life.” He “overcame huge odds” (proving that truth is stranger than fiction). “None of the Founding Fathers came from such unpromising origins.” He was born illegitimate, was orphaned by age 12, and grew up on a couple of Caribbean island that enriched themselves on rum sugar cane and the sweat of the slave’s brow. Who would have expected anything great on the American stage? Indeed, “three years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Hamilton was an illegitimate orphan working in the Virgin Islands as a merchant’s clerk." His break came when he was sent as a teenager to New York to attend what would become an Ivy League university, Columbia. He performed brilliantly in every endeavor thereafter -- well, just about every endeavor. He did not fare so well in his duel with Aaron Burr.

John Pinhiero spoke two weeks ago of one of the great divides in American thought and culture: the Hamiltonian versus the Jeffersonian answer to the question: How shall we then live together. There are two very different ways of ordering freedom in a republic.

Jim Bratt spoke last week about Hamilton’s religious outlook, placing it in the perspective of more general intellectual, moral, and spiritual currents in the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment and Great Awakening.

A fascinating figure, Hamilton. He always ranks among the top five Founding Fathers; is arguably the foremost political figure in American history who never attained the presidency; and is perennially recognized as our nation's first economist.

In the course of this series, we have been exposed to extreme views of Hamilton -- ranging from the flatteringly positive to the scurrilously negative. Much of the negative press about Hamilton was his own fault. In the struggle to put forth his vision for the new republic, he made as many political enemies as any Founder did. Among his most vocal critics was John Adams, who referred to Hamilton as "the foreigner" and called him "the most restless, impatient, artful, indefatigable, and unprincipled intriguer in the United States, if not the world." Adams, never one to fall into the error of understatement, was even more complimentary when he called Hamilton, “the bastard son of a Scottish peddler.”

Jefferson did not like Hamilton either -- in fact, couldn't stand him. They were outright political enemies by the time they were serving together in Washington's cabinet.

It didn't boost Hamilton's reputation that he became the most notorious adulterer among the Founders. His own letters reveal that he carried on with Maria Reynolds in a seedy affair that had the approval of her husband -- but only to blackmail the treasury secretary in a weak moment.

Nor did his death at the age of 49 commend him. There was still so much that his demons of ambition were prodding him to accomplish. But Hamilton had the worst kind of enemy, a mortal enemy. The former treasury secretary suffered the most spectacular death of any of the Founders, shot by the vice president of the United States in a duel. He then lingered for 31 agonizing hours before mercifully dying. The same pistol that killed Alexander had previously killed his son Phillip -- also in a duel. Too weird.

On the positive side, we think of Alexander "the Great" Hamilton as a war hero at the Battle of Yorktown; as the principal author of the Federalist Papers; and as the trusted aide to George Washington for two decades, first during the War for Independence where he demonstrated how precocious he was (he was only 20 years old when he was promoted to colonel on Washington’s staff), then during Washington’s presidency, where he served officially as the Treasury secretary, but unofficially became a rival to Jefferson who was at State. (That may have been the longest sentence I've ever composed.) Hamilton was able to exercise considerable influence over Washington's policies, but the two men had a stormy father-son-like relationship.

The title of this talk, by the way, is a play on the title sometimes used for George Washington -- “the Indispensable Man” to America’s founding. Hamilton, we know, was Washington’s indispensable aide. This evening I’d like to talk not so much about how Hamilton was Washington’s aide, as how he is ours. After all, the America he helped create is our America. That’s why the exhibit is subtitled, “The Man Who Made Modern America.” Hamilton “left behind ideas and institutions that have lasted for centuries.” Whether we like Hamilton or not, if we have not grappled with him, we have not really grappled with the origins of modern America.

"In this exhibition, we wanted to show the startling degree to which, of all the founders, Hamilton had the most modern ideas--the power of the press, the need for a strong federal government and a strong treasury, a national banking system, a stock market and trade, and a mixed economy, not one only focused on farming…."

"It's phenomenal that this man, who died in his forties, could have had so many ideas that would become true for the America that we know today," says James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute and professor of English at Columbia University.

Now let’s take a look at three areas where Hamilton is indispensable to our understanding of modern America (with due acknowledgment to James Basker, Forrest McDonald, Ron Chernow, and other Hamilton scholars).

A. FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL ORDER

Alexander Hamilton made – and continues to make – two great contributions to our American understanding of political order:

1. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as the dominant mind on the Committee of Style along with Gouvernor Morris, Hamilton helped shaped the Preamble with its incisive argument for ordered liberty.

2. After the convention, he wrote some 50 of the Federalist papers, expounding on the meaning of the Constitution and arguing for its ratification.

Where did his ideas come from? Many came from his years of military service. Hamilton, who rose to the rank of colonel in the Continental Army, watched as General Washington and his officers struggled to keep the army clothed, fed, and armed. Under the Articles of Confederation, the loosely organized confederation of states could not raise taxes. The army was dependent on the individual generosity of the thirteen legislatures.

"Hamilton saw that a decentralized government was helpless and incompetent at doing what needed to be done," says Basker.

Hamilton's army experience helped shape his ideas about the need for a strong centralized government. In his spare time, he read the works of European thinkers and economists--Adam Smith, Samuel Von Pufendorf, and Malachy Postlethwayt. Already in the late 1770s he began toying with the idea of revising the Articles of Confederation. But war's end, he had outlined a plan for a federal government with strong central powers. But for his plan to work, the Articles would have to be dramatically revised or discarded. Not uncharacteristically, he wrote the resolution calling for the Constitutional Convention.

Hamilton got his chance when he became one of the three New York delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He argued for a concentration of power in the national government – for senators and a national governor who would serve for life, based on good governing. His ideas received no support and had little influence on the other delegates. But Hamilton served on the Committee of Style and influenced the ideas and language of the Preamble.

Compare the early draft: “We the People of the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island….”

[Hold up the $10 bill and reference the words, "We the People." ]

With the final version: “We, the People of the United States, in order to
- form a more perfect union,
- establish justice,
- insure domestic tranquility,
- provide for the common defence,
- promote the general welfare, and
- secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

These 52 words are the work of a genius who understood the political philosophy of ordered liberty. Ironically, a majority of Americans in 1787 did not want to be governed by the document.

If adopting the Declaration of Independence was the supreme Jeffersonian moment in American history, with its emphasis on liberty; then ratifying the Constitution with its Preamble was the supreme Hamiltonian moment in American history, with its argument for ordered liberty.

Take a step back and think about what Hamilton’s efforts mean to the human condition…. [See my Afterword in The American Cause]

Although they did not share Hamilton's federalist vision, the delegates had trouble devising a constitution. They disagreed on states' rights, representation, and slavery. With the existing government bankrupt and on the verge of collapse, a compromise had to be reached. After the other two New York delegates left in anger--they opposed any federalist provisions--Hamilton stayed behind and signed the final draft of the Constitution as an individual. Like other delegates, he recognized that the document, while imperfect, stood the chance of being ratified by the states.
"The most important thing Hamilton did was after the Constitution had been adopted by the convention, but before it was ratified. That was the real fight," says Basker.

Hamilton returned to New York, a strongly antifederalist state, to lobby for the Constitution. Hoping to turn the tide in favor of ratification, Hamilton, along with John Jay and James Madison, wrote The Federalist, a series of essays. Hamilton wrote more than two-thirds of the eighty-five essays, which were published in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788 under the nom de plume "Publius." In the first essay, Hamilton wrote, "The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty." Newspapers throughout the colonies began reprinting the essays, and little by little, opposition eroded. The thirteen colonies approved the Constitution.

B. FOUNDER OF THE MODERN U.S. ECONOMY

Hamilton's experiences in St. Croix also influenced his economic visions. He took the view that for the new republic to survive and flourish, the economy needed to be divided between agriculture and manufacturing. "As a pre-adolescent, Hamilton saw that on the islands, they manufactured nothing for themselves; they had to import everything," says Basker. "During the Revolution, any supplies needed by the colonies, guns or uniforms or anything manufactured, needed to be acquired from the French or Dutch or had to be taken from captured British supplies. So he knew that America would have to have its own manufacturing or it would always be dependent on other countries."

This was in contrast to Jefferson's hope for a republic of free-holding yeoman farmers, and would lead to political skirmishes between the rivals.

[Hold up the $10 bill and point to the image of the Treasury Building.]

As the first treasury secretary, Hamilton inherited a bankrupt nation. The war debt was crushing. In 1790, he published his "Reports on Public Credit," a plan to assume domestic and foreign debt, pay off federal war bonds, and create a national mechanism for collecting taxes.

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson vehemently opposed Hamilton's plan. The Virginians saw it as unfair to their state. Opposition arose from other quarters as well. To break the deadlock, Hamilton turned to back room politicking and cut a deal with Jefferson. The southern states would vote in favor of his plan in exchange for Hamilton's support in favor of moving the nation's capital from New York to a site on the Potomac River.

Hamilton also secured the establishment of a federal bank and a federal mint. Against long odds, he had placed the nascent United States on solid ground fiscally. Exhausted from the political battles, Hamilton retired from Washington's cabinet in 1795. He may have retired, but his ideas did not. [See my Afterword in The American Cause.]

[Tell the story of the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian bragging for their man's rightful place in American history.]

C. FOUNDER OF REALIST U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Even though Washington asked Hamilton to head up Treasury, he was too self confident, assertive, and patriotic to restrict his efforts to domestic fiscal affairs. Indeed, a few years into the Washington administration, “the Treasury Department had … been more active internationally than had the State Department…. [Hamilton] understood European affairs better than did his counterpart in the State Department.” With his boss’s blessings, Hamilton debated Jefferson over foreign policy (which must have irritated Jefferson no end), and offered indispensable philosophical counsel and policy recommendations to the commander in chief when it came to foreign affairs.

Hamilton’s view of foreign affairs was shaped by four elements:
1. his realistic view of human nature (he has been called Machiavellian);
2. he was an astute student of history (he knew how difficult it was for republics to survive and left posterity some great lessons of history in the Federalist papers);
3. he participated directly, for more than a decade, in one of the world’s most significant revolutions and in a war for independence against the world’s then-greatest superpower; and
4. he observed the excesses of the French Revolution, which broke out the same year the Washington administration began.

As Treasury secretary, Hamilton was justified in his desire to help shape U.S. foreign policy by six factors:
1. the new republic’s small army and navy were paid for by the Treasury. Early in Washington’s first administration, there were Indian wars to deal with;
2. the new republic was becoming buried by crushing debt and needed to seek credit abroad;
3. revenues had to be raised by taxing international commerce;
4. a commercial treaty with Great Britain was desired by Washington, and Hamilton was in accord;
5. the Whiskey Rebellion: Knox went away on personal business at the moment when the new republic needed him most!
6. Washington explicitly asked Hamilton for an alternate opinion to Jefferson’s when it came to the Proclamation of Neutrality (1793). Hamilton thought that Jefferson had “a womanish attachment to France and a womanish resentment against Great Britain.”

The outbreak of the French revolution coincided with the beginning of Washington's first administration, but by 1793 warfare had engulfed Europe, pitting Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Spain against the new French Republic. In the cabinet Jefferson opposed any expression of neutrality while Hamilton supported it. Washington eventually sided with the latter and issued a proclamation of neutrality that barred American ships from supplying war matériel to either side.

Forrest McDonald writes: “In the face of war in Europe, [Hamilton] saw neutrality as the great desideratum, but not because, having known war, he cherished peace. Rather, he understood that war, in the emotional and ideological climate of the United States in the 1790s, would divide the nation against itself and sap the strength of its infant national government. Every year of peace, conversely, would allow the country to grow stronger and its government to become more stable. As a matter of policy, he therefore regarded war as acceptable only if the alternative was national disgrace or the sacrifice of vital national interests, and only if the American people could be counted on to support the war with some measure of solidarity.”

You see these sentiments resurface three years later in Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796, where the out-going president urges Americans to avoid alliances that are not in the nation’s interest. Try to set a good republican example and be friendly to all to the extent possible. There are obvious lessons for today.

CONCLUSION

Hamilton had a vision. He believed the United States could become the world’s greatest nation ever. He foresaw us becoming a “republican empire”: at home, republican; abroad, first among the nations, with a commercial and military reach able to rival that of any other "superpower" (in Hamilton’s day, Britain and France). He thought our commercial and military reach should be proportionate to the nation’s vital interests. As our vital interests grow, we become richer, stronger, and – more subject to temptation. The temptation is to become imperial at home, dictatorial even. To Hamilton, it was necessary to avoid this temptation at all costs. No previous republic had ever quite succeeded in doing so. Ancient Rome came the closest. But Rome succumbed to imperial designs at home as its military conquered distant lands. In the United States, there would be a tension between the freedom of a republic, and the reach of a global empire. It would take time to grow the new republic. In the 1790s, to use Hamilton’s words to Washington, we were “a Hercules in the cradle.” Hamilton warned: “’Tis as great an error for a nation to overrate as to underrate itself.” Again, useful words for us to remember today.

How different Hamilton’s pragmatic vision is from Jefferson’s idealistic vision.

American Founding (3): Roots or Shoots?

Old Roots of Order 

A primer of the American founding that revives mainstream nineteenth-century narratives is Russell Kirk's Roots of American Order. Now in its fourth edition, Roots is "simply one of the finest surveys of the classical, religious, and European influences on American political thought ever composed" (Lee Cheek). In his masterpiece, Kirk traces key cultural elements of four great civilizations and the cities that defined them -- biblical Jerusalem, classical Athens, ancient Rome, and medieval and early-modern London. So:

• Jerusalem is the seedbed of the West's moral and spiritual roots.
• Athens is the seedbed of the West's philosophical and ethical roots.
• Rome is the seedbed of the West's legal and political roots.
• London -- developing out of ancient German tribes -- is the seedbed of the West's rootedness in liberty and the institutions of self-government.

When I lead seminars on The Roots of American Order, it is easy to prove to American audiences that very few of our most foundational thoughts arise out of American culture. For spiritual comfort and moral guidance, many Americans consult the Bible -- a product of ancient Jerusalem. For methods of sound thinking and right reason, many American college students are taught Plato and Aristotle -- the product of classical Athens. For the concepts of natural law vis-a-vis positive law, as well as oratory, many American legislators still grapple with Cicero and his students -- the product of republican Rome. For an appreciation of representative assemblies, many American citizens still tip their hat to the British Parliament -- the product of feudal London. For understanding free markets and free trade in modern economies, we Americans still refer to Adam Smith -- a product of early modern Glasgow and Edinburgh, which by the late 18th century were intellectual satellites of London.

Is it not remarkable? Not one of these traditions originated in American soil. In all of these basic areas of thought, Americans look to "foreigners" from the distant past to recognize and interpret their world. Even the Federalist Papers, while written by Americans, are thoroughly informed by the political experience of classical Athens, ancient Rome, and early modern London. In significant ways, we Americans stand on the shoulders of giants.

The Tension between Order and Liberty

And yet, these old roots of order are not the whole of the American story. There would be new shoots of freedom throughout the nation's history. This tension between the old shoots of order and the new shoots of freedom is what makes Americans such an interesting people. To embrace this tension is to comprehend the essence of American history.

In the 16th century, the world was thrust into a new era when Europeans encountered the Western hemisphere and began planting their ambitions in its rich soil. On American ground, between the 1490s and the 1790s, various strands of cultural DNA in the West combined to make a remarkable new nation. The creation of the United States was organically related to previous civilizations, to be sure, but not a clone of any of them. Culturally our early republic represented a unique grafting of key elements -- from the monotheistic promise of Jerusalem, to the unfinished philosophical quests of ancient Athens, to the civic republican inheritance of ancient Rome, to the evolving political institutions and common law of London. Politically the Anglo-American errand into the wilderness was producing a new species of polity that began to blossom in Philadelphia in the mid 1770s.

On the one hand, the early republic represented "a revolution not made but prevented," as Burkeans would characterize it. (See Edmund Burke's Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in which he discusses the principles of 1688.) On the other hand, as Alexander Hamilton reminds us, the new polity was the result of self-conscious reflection on American resistance to British tyranny. (See his opening to Federalist Paper Number 1.)

So the establishment of the United States was a unique mix of old and new, fulfillment and promise. It did not exactly represent a novus ordo seclorum -- a new order of the ages -- as some American boosters claimed. (The phrase is still on our paper currency.) In reality, each of the four "root cities" provided the cultural stock from which America's founders, framers, farmers, and forward-trekking pioneers would draw sustenance. These early Americans went about their daily lives with their Bible, Aesop, Plutarch, and Blackstone in hand. But on the frontier something new was grafted into their worldview.

New Shoots of Freedom

As the title of his book implies, Kirk emphasizes continuity over change -- old roots over new shoots. And yet, new shoots there were. The first major new shoot appeared, if we are to believe John Adams, in a Boston courtroom in 1761, when James Otis asserted one of the radical ideas of the early modern age -- that human beings are not born to be subjects of a monarch or servants of a dynasty; that there should be a new relationship between the people and their government; that the rulers should be a people's servants. Adams reported being riveted by the speech Otis delivered. Its content was different, revolutionary, even disconcerting. Adams recalled Otis saying that

"every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written on his heart, revealed to him by his maker in the constitution of his nature, and the inspiration of his understanding and conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest; nor was his right to property less incontestable...." Adams added: "Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught, and I have all my life shuddered and still shudder at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises."

Looking back, Adams believed that the start of the American Revolution was not at Lexington and Concord, but 14 years earlier in that courtroom. It was not so much on battlefields, as in minds and hearts that the revolution occurred. As Peter Mancall explains, "the change in the sentiments of Americans toward government ... constituted the real Revolution.... As a result of the Revolution, Americans were citizens of a republic, not subjects of a monarch. The people at large had become sovereign, and they created state and national governments to meet their needs.... [Thus] the Revolution ... redefined the nature of politics in the western world."* A new shoot indeed.

So What Changed?

An exciting beginning to a new world order, this -- but it was only a beginning. The hundred years from the 1760s to the 1860s was the first Time of Trial in American history. This Time of Trial saw significant challenges: the American Revolution, War for Independence, birth agony of the new republic, and wars -- a war against aboriginal Americans, against the French, against Barbary Pirates, a second war against Britain, a war against Mexico, and a civil war that brought to a head the unresolved paradoxes at the founding. As a result of these pressures, American politics and culture began to change significantly. They diverged in key ways from European politics and culture. After the tumult of that one hundred years, what had changed?

• Politically and constitutionally: By the 1780s, a large republic was created in a world of settled monarchies. It took two attempts to get the new republic right -- first in the Articles of Confederation, then in the U.S. Constitution -- but it happened. Sovereignty now resided in citizens, not in monarchs, and politics in the Western world was forever after redefined.  
• Ecclesiastically: There would be no national church. At the start of the War for Independence, only five states had an established church. A half century later, there were no more state supported or established churches in the land.
• Socially: Successful revolutions are usually about radical social upheaval. The French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions turned their worlds upside down. The American Revolution did not. As John Willson has argued, the most remarkable thing about the American Revolution is what did not occur, as opposed to what might have occurred. The more radical reformers -- Thomas Paine comes to mind -- were kept in check; social engineering never became part of the program. The relative modesty of our revolution was due in no small part to the fact that there was no entrenched aristocratic order to overthrow. Besides confiscating a few Loyalist estates, revolutionary era governments did not redistribute property. Moreover, to make sure no government-sanctioned aristocracy could arise on American soil, titles of nobility were outlawed in Article I, section 9, of the U.S. Constitution. Socially, formal deference to one's "betters" began disappearing. The literal whipping boys of princes in English courts were unheard of. Equality became an actionable political idea, and the democratic principle would increasingly assert itself.  
• Culturally: Noah Webster and other chauvinists endeavored to create a distinctively American language, architecture, and culture that reflected their belief in the superiority of the "new world."  
• Geographically: The presence of a large frontier in the West renewed the possibility, again and again, of equal opportunity and upward mobility (mostly for white males).  
• Economically: The world's largest, continuous, free-trade zone was coming into existence.
• Civil society: In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that America's network of voluntary associations was the world's most developed, by far. It was spurred by the fact that pioneers on the frontier outpaced government's reach. People had to solve their own problems.
• Morally: The U.S. was hardly the first nation to get rid of slavery. In fact, in light of the Declaration of Independence, the founders were embarrassingly slow to rid the nation of its glaring contradiction. But by 1865, as a result of the Civil War and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, race-based chattel slavery was finally abolished on American soil. It resulted in the largest, uncompensated transfer of private property in human history; four million men and women of African descent were liberated from the shackles of the peculiar institution. This was revolutionary. Yet it is important to remember that social attitudes did not necessarily change with the Thirteenth Amendment. Abraham Lincoln wanted the nation's four million blacks to emigrate and colonize Honduras, Liberia, or other tropical areas -- anyplace away from the U.S. so they would not mix socially with whites.
• Psychologically: Americans with a physical frontier could also experience something of a psychological frontier. They could choose not to carry forward the burdens of the past. In fact, Americans could be indifferent to the past, and look only toward the future, and reinvent themselves again and again if they wanted. Innovations all, from the perspective of Old Europe's conservatives defending their anciens regimes.

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*For John Adams's 1818 retrospective on James Otis in 1761 and the true beginning of the American Revolution, see Peter C. Mancall, Origins and Ideologies of the American Revolution, vol. 4 (Chantilly, VA: Teaching Company, 2005), pp. 194, 206-07.]
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