JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON
TODAY
JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON TODAY
I
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
—JEFFERSON
“The People, your People, Sir, is a great Beast.”
—HAMILTON
Rhetoric and sentimentalism have always appealed almost equally to the
American people. “Waving the flag” and “sob stuff” are the two keys
which unlock the hearts of our widest publics. It is not, therefore,
perhaps wholly unfair to take the most rhetorical and emotional of the
utterances of Jefferson and Hamilton with relation to their fundamental
political philosophies to head this article. The complete divergence of
the two men could be shown in many quotations more carefully worded,
but would appear only the more clearly. That divergence was sharp-cut
and complete. Their views as to the relation of the people at large to
government were as far asunder as the poles. In examining the writings
of both these statesmen, it has been borne in upon me that if, as
Lincoln said, a nation cannot live half slave and half free, neither
can it live half Hamilton and half Jefferson, especially when the two
ingredients are mixed, as they now are, in the blurred mentalities of
the same individuals.
The two men themselves knew this well in their own lifetimes. Each
fought valiantly for his own beliefs. Each felt that one or the other,
and one philosophy or the other, must conquer. Neither believed that
the two could lie down together, lion and lamb, in that curious and
conglomerately furnished mental apartment, the American consciousness.
That this has come to be the case merely shows for how little ideas
really count in modern American political life, a life which is almost
wholly emotional and financial rather than intellectual. Ideas are
supposed to be explosive. In America, apparently, they are as harmless
as “duds.” Even the Civil War, our greatest “moral” struggle, was
largely a matter of emotion; and as for the last war, anyone who,
like myself, was in a position to watch the manufacture of propaganda
can say whether it was directed to the heart or to the head of the
multitude.
There are certain ways in which conflicting ideas may be held in the
one community without hypocrisy. In every age, for example, there
has been one set of beliefs for the learned, the cultivated, and the
sophisticated, and another for the mob. The mob in the past was never
educated, and even “the people” to-day, in spite of a smattering of
“book knowledge,” are not educated in the same way that the cultivated
and, in an uninvidious sense, the privileged classes are. Here and
there one may find a case of a mechanic, a farmer, a saleslady, or what
not who really uses his or her mind, but how rare the cases are I leave
to anyone who is not afraid to come out and tell the truth as he has
found it, speaking broadly. Merely reading a newspaper, even if not
of the tabloid variety, or tucking away unrelated bits of information
uncritically, is not thinking. Between the man who critically analyzes,
compares, and thinks, and the one who merely reads, there is a great
gulf fixed as to ideas.
Such a case has always been common in religion, from the medicine
man or the Egyptian priest down to the Archbishop of Canterbury or a
cardinal in Rome. The dogmas of the Christian religion, for example,
as held by the two latter are quite different “ideas” from the same as
held by a person who has had no philosophical training and who could
not if he would, and would not if he could, undertake the course of
study necessary to get the point of view of the bishop or the cardinal.
In this sense, ideas which are so different as to be almost, if not
quite, contradictory may nevertheless live on side by side in the
same society without hypocrisy. They may, indeed, be considered as
expressions of the same idea merely attuned differently to be caught,
as far as possible, by minds of different “pitch.”
Again, we may have ideals which apparently conflict with the practice
of society, but they _are_ ideals and, however far practice may fall
short of attainment, there is no real conflict, because in fact a
certain amount of effort, however slight and however sporadic, is made
to attain them. The conflict is not between clashing ideas or ideals,
but between ideal and practice.
Once more, contradictory ideas may exist in the same society without
hypocrisy if they are held by different individuals or parties who
openly avow them and who either honestly agree to differ in peace or
who struggle to get one or the other set of ideas accepted by all.
But the odd thing about the contradictory Hamilton-Jefferson ideas
is that they are not held by different social classes,—the one set
of ideas as a sort of esoteric doctrine and the other publicly
proclaimed,—nor are they any longer the platforms of two parties,
as in the days when the two statesmen themselves fought honestly,
courageously, and bitterly for them in the open. And I say this even
though the portrait of Hamilton may adorn the walls of Republican
clubs and that of Jefferson those of the Democratic ones. The present
situation is anomalous.
Hamilton and Jefferson each had a fundamental premise. These were
as utterly contradictory as two major premises could possibly be.
From each of these respectively each of the men deduced his system
of government with impeccable logic. Yet what of these men and their
philosophies in our politics to-day? There is scarcely a politician
of any party who would dare to preach Hamilton’s main deductions,
while not a single one could be elected to any office if he did not
preach Jefferson’s premise. The Republicans claim to be followers of
Hamilton, yet they would not dare to preach Hamilton’s most fundamental
assumption, that on which his whole structure was based. The Democrats
claim to be followers of Jefferson, yet they have departed far from
some of his most important deductions. On the whole, I confess I think
they show the greater intellectual integrity of the two parties, yet,
so far, I have always voted Republican, which is a sample of the
intellectual muddle our politics are in.
II
Before going further, let us examine very briefly what the ideas of the
two men were.
Jefferson’s fundamental idea, his major premise, was an utter trust in
the morality, the integrity, the ability, and the political honesty
of the common man of America, at least as America was then and as
Jefferson hoped it would remain for centuries. He made this point
again and again, and from it deduced his whole system. Based on that
belief, he wrought out the doctrine that the only safety for the State
depended on the widest possible extension of the franchise. “The
influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every
individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate
authority, the government will be safe.” “It is rarely that the public
sentiment decides immorally or unwisely.” “It has been thought that
corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few
of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more effectually
restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as would bid
defiance to the means of corruption.” He dreaded the power of wealth,
the growth of manufacturers, the development of banks, the creation
of a strong central government, a judiciary which was not elected
and readily amenable to the will of the majority. He wished for as
little government as possible, with few hampering restrictions on
the individual expression of the citizen. He was for free trade and
universally diffused free education. He wished to preserve the State
governments in all their vigor, which, at that time, meant practically
independent and sovereign commonwealths. To the Federal government he
would allot the most meagre of functions, merely those dealing with
foreign nations and concerning such acts in common as it would be
impracticable for the states to perform individually. His ideal was “a
wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one
another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits
of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of
labor the bread it has earned.” “This,” he added, “is the sum of good
government.”
On the other hand, let us turn to Hamilton. The remark prefixed to
this article, although made in a moment of vexation, expresses his
attitude toward the common people, whom he never trusted. In his
writings for the public, he had, of course, to be more discreet in his
utterances, but his statements, and still more his acts, are clear
enough. “Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their
passions.... One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest
than they are.” “It is a just observation that the people commonly
_intend_ the _public good_. This often applies to their very errors.
But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that
they always _reason right_ about the _means_ of promoting it.... When
occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are
at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons
whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to
withstand the temporary delusions.” “The voice of the people has been
said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been
quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent
and changing; they seldom judge right or determine right.” “Can a
democratic Assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be
supposed steadily to pursue the public good?” “The difference [between
rich and poor] indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind of vices,
which are incident to the various classes; and here the advantage
of character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more
favorable to the prosperity of the State than those of the indigent,
and partake less of moral depravity.” “It is an unquestionable truth,
that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its
prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess
the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government.”
As a corollary from this fundamental assumption, Hamilton devoted
all his great abilities to the development of as strong a central
government as possible. He would remove power as completely as might
be from the hands of the common people and place it in those who
had inherited or acquired wealth and position. For this purpose he
deliberately set about to tie the wealthy classes to government by
his Funding Act, by the creation of manufactures, by a protective
tariff, by the establishment of banks, and in other ways. He felt that
human nature had always been the same and would not change. Public
education did not interest him. His one interest was the establishment
of a strong government in strong hands, and he evidently felt that a
smattering of book knowledge, such as our people even yet get in grade
and high schools, would not alter their characters and make them safe
depositaries for political power. In fact, and this is an important
point to note in his system, the development of the industrial state
would tend to make the people at large even less capable than in his
day by creating, as it has done, a vast mass of mere wage-earners,
floating city dwellers, on the one hand, while it built up his wealthy
class on the other. The great mass of the people, he reasoned, would
always have to be governed in any case, and the more powerful and
influential the wealthy could be made, the stronger would they be
for governing. Out of these simple assumptions, the banks, the vast
“implied powers” of the central government, the funding of the national
debt, the rise of a manufacturing industry, and the formation of a
tariff designed not merely to protect infant industries but to create a
dependence of wealth upon government favor, were developed as clearly
and logically as a theorem in Euclid.
Thus, very briefly, and perhaps a trifle crudely, we have stated the
real bases of Jeffersonianism and Hamiltonianism. Their whole systems
of government sprang logically from their differing premises. Jefferson
trusted the common man. Hamilton deeply distrusted him. That was a
very clear-cut issue from 1790 to 1800, and both men, and the people
themselves, recognized it as such. Stupendous consequences would follow
from the success in practical politics at that time of either of those
theories of human nature. For the first decade of our national life
Hamilton beat Jefferson in practical politics, and in a very real sense
created the United States as we know it to-day, a vast manufacturing
nation with its Federal government eating up all the state governments
like an Aaron’s rod, with its trusts and its money power and its
Chinese wall of a protective tariff, and all the rest. There is no
doubt of the strength of the present government. There is no doubt of
the support it derives from the wealthy classes. There is no doubt
of the colossal success of the industrial experiment as a creator of
wealth.
The Republican Party may well look back to Hamilton as its High Priest,
but the odd thing is that Hamilton created all this heritage of
strength and power and banks and tariffs for a very simple reason, and
that reason the Republican Party would not dare to breathe aloud in any
party convention, campaign, or speech. “The People, your People, Sir,
is a great Beast.” Imagine that as an exordium of a keynote speech to
nominate Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover. Hamilton deliberately set
about to create special privileges for certain classes so that those
classes would in turn support the government and control the people.
What does the Republican Party do? It hangs on for dear life to all
those special privileges, it preaches Hamilton’s corollaries as the one
pure political gospel, and then it steals Jefferson’s major premise,
and preaches the wisdom and the nobility and the political acumen
of the common people! One feels like inquiring in the vernacular,
with deep emotion, “How did you get that way?” As when watching a
prestidigitator, one’s jaw drops with amazement as the rabbit pops from
the one hat we could not possibly have expected it from.
On the other hand, how about the Democrats? They too preach Jefferson’s
major premise—the wisdom, the ability, and the political acumen of
the common people. But what have they done with most of Jefferson’s
deductions? They certainly do not evince any strong desire to reduce
the functions of government and bring it down to that “wise and frugal”
affair their leader visioned. They are more inclined to increase
government bureaus and supervision and interference with the affairs
of the citizen. As to the tariff, they have capitulated completely and
in the last campaign scarcely mentioned the dangerous topic, for fear
of losing money and votes. They preach their founder’s major premise
and hurrah for the common people, but beyond that I cannot penetrate
at all through the murky fog which hides all real political issues in
the United States to-day. There is the vague sense of expectancy one
has during the entr’acte at the theatre. There is nothing to see, but
eventually the curtain will go up again. Meanwhile the scene shifters
are supposedly busy. I have an idea that before long the scene-shifters
will not be our spineless politicians, but the Fates.
III
And now, lastly, let us consider one more curious thing about this
preaching and living of Hamilton’s conclusions illogically from
Jefferson’s premise.
Is that premise really valid to-day for either party? Would even
Jefferson believe it to be? There is no telling what he would say if
he came back, but it must be remembered that he did not believe in the
common people always and under all circumstances. He drew a distinction
many times between those living in the simple agricultural America
of his time and those in the crowded cities of Europe. In a long and
interesting letter to John Adams, he wrote: “Before the establishment
of the United States, nothing was known to history but the man of the
old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged, and
steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government
adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one, that
for the man of these States. Here every one may have land to labor
for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other
industry, may exact from it such compensation as not only to afford
comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from
labor in old age.... Such men may safely and advantageously reserve to
themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree
of freedom, which, in the hands of the _canaille_ of the cities of
Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction
of everything public and private.” Again he says that our governments
will surely become corrupt when our conditions as to crowded cities
shall have approximated those of the Europe of his day.
Without here attempting to pass any judgment on the success of
Hamilton’s work in its human rather than its financial and governmental
aspects, we shall have to admit that it has brought about the very
conditions which Jefferson dreaded and under which he feared that his
common man would become corrupt and incapable of self-government. The
tremendous demand for labor resulted in our importing by the millions
those very _canaille_, in Jefferson’s phrase,—people from the lowest
classes of overcrowded Europe,—in whom he had no confidence whatever,
whom he considered incapable of self-government. We have ourselves
developed overcrowded conditions. There are three times as many people
in the metropolitan area of New York to-day as there were in the entire
United States in Jefferson’s day. Over fifty per cent of our population
now live in cities and are beginning, in the larger ones at least, to
develop the vices of a city mentality. In fact the corruption is worse
here than in Europe in many respects. London has a larger population
than New York, yet it costs $180,000,000 a year to run that city and
$525,000,000 to run New York. Even making all allowances for difference
in prices, there is no escaping a most unpleasant conclusion from those
figures.
Yet Jefferson claimed that if he was right in his assumption that
the common man was honest, able, and capable of self-government, the
governments most honestly and frugally conducted would be those
nearest to him, the local rather than the Federal. Jefferson’s whole
philosophy was agrarian. It was based on the one population in the
world he thought worthy of it—a population of which ninety per cent
were farmers, mostly owning their own homes. He hoped it would remain
so for many hundreds of years and believed that it would. It did so for
only a few decades.
How long are we to go on preaching Jefferson and practising Hamilton?
Jefferson’s philosophy develops from his premise and hangs together. So
does Hamilton’s. But the two do not mix at all, as both men recognized
in deadly earnest. We have been trying to mix them ever since,
oratorically at least. We practise Hamilton from January 1 to July 3
every year. On July 4 we hurrah like mad for Jefferson. The next day
we quietly take up Hamilton again for the rest of the year as we go
about our business. I do not care which philosophy a man adopts, but to
preach one and to practise the other is hypocrisy, and hypocrisy in the
long run poisons the soul.
Personally I prefer Jefferson as a man to Hamilton. In his spirit
I believe he was far more of an aristocrat than Hamilton ever was,
with all his social pretensions. I prefer the America which Jefferson
visualized and hoped for to that which Hamilton dreamed of and brought
to pass on a scale he never could measure. On the other hand, I believe
that the future will be, as the past has been, Hamilton’s. His hopes
and Jefferson’s fears have come true. The small farmer, the shopkeeper,
the artisan are being more and more crowded out from the interest of a
plutocratic government. A Hamiltonian philosophy or government cares
nothing for them as compared with the large manufacturer and larger
trust.
If we want to know why they should not be helped or protected as
well as corporations which can declare hundreds of per cent in stock
dividends and then cash dividends on the stock dividends and so on ad
infinitum, we must go back to Hamilton and the beginning of his system.
I do not see now that any other system is possible. Perhaps some day we
may secure a lowering of the tariff to less swinish levels and certain
other reforms, but as a whole the system must stand. Jefferson’s dream
of a new and better world at last opened to men, with a whole continent
at their back over which as freeholders they could slowly expand for
ages, has passed. We have swallowed our heritage almost at a gulp. We
have become as a nation colossally rich. But if anyone thinks we have
become more honest or more capable of self-government, let him study
the records.
If we are to accept Hamilton’s conclusions and system, why not be
honest and accept, instead of Jefferson’s, his own premise, the only
real basis for his conclusions and, as he believed, the only real
buttress for his system? That system was based upon the deep, honest,
and publicly avowed belief that the people could not govern themselves.
That they do so, except to the extent of sometimes impeding action at a
crisis, is, I believe, far less true than they believe, unpalatable as
that remark may be. Of course, “public opinion” has to be considered,
but anyone who knows how public opinion is manufactured can take that
at its real value. Of course, again, there is a lot of bunkum talked,
but that can also be taken at its real value. There are two passages
in “Uncle” Joe Cannon’s _Autobiography_ that, taken together, are
very amusing. In one of the chapters he describes how Mark Hanna had
the nomination for President of the United States absolutely in his
own hand. The sole choice “the people” had was to vote for or against
Hanna’s man. Yet Cannon ends his book by saying that America is ruled
from the homes and the firesides! As for public opinion, it is far from
always being salutary. I have good reason to believe that, had it not
been for public opinion in the Middle West, Wilson would have entered
the war long before he did; it would have ended far sooner; and the
world would have been saved much of all that has happened since. Had
it not been for public opinion, which really meant popular emotion,
in about twenty countries after the Armistice, the men gathered at
Paris to make the Peace Treaty would have been able to make a far more
sensible one than they did.
One last point. Hamilton believed in giving special privileges to
certain classes so as to secure their adherence and support. That is
understandable, and is good Republican doctrine to-day. But those who
did not get those privileges were to be kept as far as possible from
any control of government. That may sound a bit cold-blooded, but it
also is logical and understandable. Jefferson believed in privileges
for none and a voice in the government for all. Again, given his
premise, that is a logical and understandable position. But where
is the logic, and what will happen, when you give the power to all
and still try to retain special privileges for some? For a while the
patient may be kept quiet with strong doses of “hokum,” but some day we
may find that the opposing views of the two statesmen of 1800 cannot
be fused as innocuously as we have tried to fuse them.
Hamilton and Jefferson. Honest men both, and bitterest of foes in a
fight over premises and principles which they knew were fundamental.
How amazed they would be could they return and find us preaching
the one, practising the other, and mixing their clear-cut positions
together! Hamilton might be pleased to see the stupendous growth of
all he had dreamed, but would ask why, when all had gone so perfectly
according to his plans, political power had been transferred to the
people at large. Jefferson would say, why preach theoretically his
fundamental assumption and then do all and more than his bitterest foe
could do to nullify it practically? Both might say, hypocrites, or
addle-pates.
Our apologetic answer for the last century might be—democracy. The
answer for the next century is hidden, but is deeply troubling the
thoughtful or the wealthy of every nation except the prosperous class
in America, which is too gorged with profits to think about anything.