Alexander Hamilton: the greatest founding father you never knew

"If Washington was the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government"-- Ron Chernow

This last year I was richly rewarded by reading Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton". I will never look upon American history the same. Alexander Hamilton is greatly under appreciated. Hamilton's importance easily matches that of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, et al. Hamilton was key to winning the Revolutionary War. He was key to getting the Constitution ratified. He was key to establishing a successful national government. He laid the foundation for modern American capitalism. He wrote volumes on law, government, and finance. Too much cannot be said of his accomplishments.

From Chernow's well written book, we obtain great insight into the founding of the Republic. I was fascinated by his ability to lay bare the imperfections of our founding fathers. These men were gifted, but regular people. Our heritage is that these individuals balanced out the excesses of one another to forge a new government based on citizen participation and freedom.

I was fascinated with the politics of the new American government. Hamilton is peculiar in that today's Left and Right can both find much to love and hate about him. As a "High Federalist" he is known for having expanded the role of government early on. He was hated by the Anti-federalists and the Republicans (not be confused with today's GOP) for creating a national bank and for strengthening the central government. That would seem to make him a "liberal" by today's standards. But Hamilton did not believe that government programs could fix people. He believed in creating a strong financial system which honored contracts and property rights. He also deplored the secularism and the mob rule of the French Revolution. He understood that people are imperfect and always will be. That makes him a conservative.

Chernow's account of Jefferson might surprise contemporary students of politics who are accustomed to putting him on a pedestal. Jefferson was conniving and back stabbing. He was hypocritical. Despite his shortcomings, his idealism was a major contribution to American freedom. Politically, he is a mixed bag. His humanist side makes him a liberal, but his distrust of centralized power makes him a conservative. I think he would turn in the grave to know that liberalism has morphed into a socialism that has brought us the centralized oppressive bureaucracy he so feared.

One thing that really jumped out at me after reading Alexander Hamilton was: why isn't there a movie!? Exotic locales, war, dramatic courtroom scenes, the adulterous affair and subsequent extortion, internecine battles, and of course...the duel. It doesn't get any better than this. When is Hollywood going to figure out that there is a blockbuster here?

If you only read one book about the Founding Fathers, this should be it!
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Random Quotes from the book:
"Tis by introducing order into our finances--by restoring the public credit--not by gaining battles that we are finally to gain our object". -Hamilton on the economic side of national security

"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. It will be a powerful cement of our union." -Hamilton on the benefits of public debt. (bold type added by me)

"Financial embarrassments led to those steps which led to the overthrow of the government and to all the terrible scenes which have followed." -Hamilton on how excessive debt led to crises in France

"The law is whatever is successfully argued and plausibly maintained" --Aaron Burr

"He was not a politician seeking popularity but a statesman determined to change minds." -Chernow on Hamilton's rigorous defense of an unpopular Tory. (Reminds me of John Adam's defense of the Boston Massacre soldiers)

"The rancor ushered in a golden age of literary assassination in American politics. No etiquette had yet evolved to define the legitimate boundaries of dissent. Poison pen artists on both sides wrote vitriolic essays that were overtly partisan, often paid scant heed to accuracy, and sought a visceral impact. The inflamed rhetoric once directed against Britain was now turned inward against domestic adversaries." -Chernow on the partisan politics of new nation. (Remarkable how little things change)

"The future secretary of state [Jefferson], now sailing home, was to strike Hamilton as just such a 'philosophic politician' ignorant of human nature. Hamilton later explained to a political associate that Jefferson in Paris 'drank deeply of the French philosophy in religion, in science, in politics' " -Chernow on Jefferson's infatuation with the French Revolution

"Owing in part to Hamilton's generous construction of [the general welfare] clause, it was to acquire enormous significance, allowing the government to enact programs to advance social welfare." -Chernow on Hamilton's eventual influence on modern social welfare programs.

"The superstructure of credit is now too vast for the foundation...It must be gradually brought within more reasonable dimensions or it will tumble." -Hamilton on the bank scrip bubble of 1792. (Again, how little times have changed.)

"[Hamilton] learned a lesson about propaganda in politics and mused wearily that 'no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.' If a charge was made often enough, people assumed in the end 'that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent.' " -Hamilton on the effectiveness of negative politics

"The period of John Adam's presidency declined into a time of political savagery with few parallels in American history, a season of paranoia in which the two parties surrendered all trust in each other. Like other Federalists infected with war fever, Hamilton increasingly mistook dissent for treason and engaged in hyperbole" -Chernow on party polarization. (We saw a close repeat during the last decade)

"Hamilton had intuited rightly that Jefferson, once in office, would be reluctant to reject executive powers he had deplored in opposition" --Chernow on Jefferson's flip flop regarding executive power once he was president.

"Hamilton never believed in the perfectibility of human nature and regularly violated what became the first commandment of American politics: thou shalt always be optimistic when addressing the electorate." --Chernow on Hamilton's conservative view of human nature.