Book Review: Alexander Hamilton
By Recently finished reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton. I unreservedly recommend it to just about anyone interested in the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. Chernow is clearly sympathetic to Hamilton in his conflicts against Jefferson, Madison, and the other Republicans. Chernow does not overlook the faults of his hero, which led to animosity on the part of the aforementioned Republicans, John Adams, Aaron Burr, and a fair percentage of the rest of revolutionary America. The only ones who seemed to unreservedly worship Hamilton were his wife, his wife’s family, and George Washington.
Chernow revisits the major conflicts between Hamilton and Jefferson, and argues that history favored Hamilton’s conception of America far more than Jefferson’s. I think that he’s more or less correct, with some glaring exceptions. Hamilton was an abolitionist before it became fashionable, and, as Treasury Secretary, helped to set the foundations for an active and capable federal government. Until he became President, Jefferson was interested in little of that, and resisted Hamilton at most opportuniites. Hamilton also turned out to be correct about the course of the French Revolution, which appealed a bit overmuch to Jefferson and his comrades. On the other hand, Hamilton was perhaps too fond of monarchy and centralized executive power, and was certainly in favor of the awful Alien and Sedition Acts. This conflict has been discussed before, although I’m not sure that any previous work has really given Hamilton a fair shake; in my high school history class, Hamilton was still the chief villain of the awful Federalist Party.
Chernow establishes beyond doubt that Hamilton is a more important figure than most of the men who have sat as U.S. President. Hamilton’s work at Treasury helped make the United States solvent when many were calling for a repudiation of the national debt. Hamilton’s Treasury Department favored the development of manufacturing in urban areas, and Hamilton worked to establish a permanent standing Army and Navy. He also saw international trade as part of the foundation of the American economy, and did his best to ameliorate the ongoing conflicts with Great Britain that threatened American trade. Hamilton was the intellectual force behind the Washington Administration, and wrote not only many of the Federalist Papers, but also George Washington’s farewell address (Jonah Goldberg et al have tried to appropriate this address in service of the Iraq War, which is consistent with their attempt to appropriate Edmund Burke in service of colonial interventionism).
No discussion of Hamilton is complete without a discussion of Aaron Burr, and Chernow follows Burr’s career as it parellels that of Hamilton. Chernow is not a negative about Burr as some review might lead you to believe, which is remarkable given that Burr was a detestable figure. Strangely enough, Burr and Hamilton acted as defense counsel for an accused murderer in 1798, winning the case easily. For a modern parallel, imagine Bill Clinton and Ken Starr coming together to defend Scott Peterson. It’s considerably less difficult to imagine them shooting at one another a few years later.
One of the most interesting parallels between now and the Revolutionary Era involves the level of political discourse. The Republicans and the Federalists felt that they had no common ground; Jefferson suspected Hamilton of desiring a monarchy and reunification with Great Britain, while Hamilton thought that Jefferson wanted to see the streets of New York flow with as much blood as those of Paris. Hamilton’s sexual dalliances became part of the public record in much the same way as those of Bill Clinton, and the press of the day repeated every allegation made by both sides, without an overly great respect for any facts. Rules of discourse and appropriateness had not yet come into place, making political conflict particularly bloodthirsty. Party politics requires a sense a common ground and common purpose which did not exist at least until the re-election of Jefferson; we lost that common ground in the 1850s and again, partially, in the 1950s and 1960s. I think that right now we’re headed in the same direction, except that the Democrats have been slow to realize that the Republicans aren’t playing by the rules any longer. When the Vice President can state that the election of the opposition will ensure a terrorist attack, you know that the rules of the game have gone out the window.
Anyway, read the book. It’s only 738 pages long. Now reading The Habsburg Monarchy, by Robin Okey, and Seven Ages of Paris, by Alistair Horne.