I
THE FEDERALISTS AND THE REPUBLICANS
The purpose of the following review of American political ideas and
practices is, it must be premised, critical rather than narrative or
expository. I am not seeking to justify a political and economic theory
by an appeal to historical facts. I am seeking, on the contrary, to
place some kind of an estimate and interpretation upon American
political ideas and achievements; and this estimate and interpretation
is determined chiefly by a preconceived ideal. The acceptability of such
an estimate and interpretation will, of course, depend at bottom upon
the number of important facts which it explains and the number which it
either neglects or distorts. No doubt, certain omissions and distortions
are inevitable in an attempt of this kind; but I need scarcely add that
the greatest care has been taken to avoid them. In case the proposed
conception of the Promise of American life cannot be applied to our
political and economic history without essential perversion, it must
obviously fall to the ground; and as a matter of fact, the ideal itself
has been sensibly modified during the course of this attempt to give it
an historical application. In spite of all these modifications it
remains, however, an extremely controversial review. Our political and
economic past is, in a measure, challenged in order to justify our
political and social future. The values placed upon many political
ideas, tendencies, and achievements differ radically from the values
placed upon them either by their originators and partisans or in some
cases by the majority of American historians. The review, consequently,
will meet with a far larger portion of instinctive opposition and
distrust than it will of acquiescence. The whole traditional set of
values which it criticises is almost as much alive to-day as it was two
generations ago, and it forms a background to the political faith of
the great majority of Americans. Whatever favor a radical criticism can
obtain, it must win on its merits both as an adequate interpretation of
our political past and as an outlook towards the solution of our present
and future political and economic problems.
The material for this critical estimate must be sought, not so much in
the events of our national career, as in the ideas which have influenced
its course. Closely as these ideas are associated with the actual course
of American development, their meaning and their remoter tendencies have
not been wholly realized therein, because beyond a certain point no
attempt was made to think out these ideas candidly and consistently. For
one generation American statesmen were vigorous and fruitful political
thinkers; but the time soon came when Americans ceased to criticise
their own ideas, and since that time the meaning of many of our
fundamental national conceptions has been partly obscured, as well as
partly expressed, by the facts of our national growth. Consequently we
must go behind these facts and scrutinize, with more caution than is
usually considered necessary, the adequacy and consistency of the
underlying ideas. And I believe that the results of such a scrutiny will
be very illuminating. It will be found that from the start there has
been one group of principles at work which have made for American
national fulfillment, and another group of principles which has made for
American national distraction; and that these principles are as much
alive to-day as they were when Jefferson wrote the Kentucky resolutions
or when Jackson, at the dinner of the Jefferson Club, toasted the
preservation of the Union. But while these warring principles always
have been, and still are, alive, they have never, in my opinion, been
properly discriminated one from another; and until such a discrimination
is made, the lesson cannot be profitably applied to the solution of our
contemporary national problems.
All our histories recognize, of course, the existence from the very
beginning of our national career of two different and, in some respects,
antagonistic groups of political ideas,--the ideas which were
represented by Jefferson, and the ideas which were represented by
Hamilton. It is very generally understood, also, that neither the
Jeffersonian nor the Hamiltonian doctrine was entirely adequate, and
that in order to reach a correct understanding of the really formative
constituent in the complex of American national life, a combination must
be made of both Republicanism and Federalism. But while the necessity of
such a combination is fully realized, I do not believe that it has ever
been mixed in just the proper proportions. We are content to say with
Webster that the prosperity of American institutions depends upon the
unity and inseparability of individual and local liberties and a
national union. We are content to declare that the United States must
remain somehow a free and a united country, because there can be no
complete unity without liberty and no salutary liberty outside of a
Union. But the difficulties with this phrase, its implications and
consequences, we do not sufficiently consider. It is enough that we have
found an optimistic formula wherewith to unite the divergent aspects of
the Republican, and Federalist doctrines.
We must begin, consequently, with critical accounts of the ideas both of
Jefferson and of Hamilton; and we must seek to discover wherein each of
these sets of ideas was right, and wherein each was wrong; in what
proportions they were subsequently combined in order to form "our noble
national theory," and what were the advantages, the limitations, and the
effects of this combination. I shall not disguise the fact that, on the
whole, my own preferences are on the side of Hamilton rather than of
Jefferson. He was the sound thinker, the constructive statesman, the
candid and honorable, if erring, gentleman; while Jefferson was the
amiable enthusiast, who understood his fellow-countrymen better and
trusted them more than his rival, but who was incapable either of
uniting with his fine phrases a habit of candid and honorable private
dealing or of embodying those phrases in a set of efficient
institutions. But although Hamilton is much the finer man and much the
sounder thinker and statesman, there were certain limitations in his
ideas and sympathies the effects of which have been almost as baleful as
the effects of Jefferson's intellectual superficiality and insincerity.
He perverted the American national idea almost as much as Jefferson
perverted the American democratic idea, and the proper relation of these
two fundamental conceptions one to another cannot be completely
understood until this double perversion is corrected.
To make Hamilton and Jefferson exclusively responsible for this double
perversion is, however, by no means fair. The germs of it are to be
found in the political ideas and prejudices with which the American
people emerged from their successful Revolutionary War. At that time,
indeed, the opposition between the Republican and the Federalist
doctrines had not become definite and acute; and it is fortunate that
such was the case, because if the opponents of an efficient Federal
constitution had been organized and had been possessed of the full
courage and consciousness of their convictions, that instrument would
never have been accepted, or it would have been accepted only in a much
more mutilated and enfeebled condition. Nevertheless, the different
political points of view which afterwards developed into Hamiltonian
Federalism and Jeffersonian Republicanism were latent in the interests
and opinions of the friends and of the opponents of an efficient Federal
government; and these interests and opinions were the natural product of
contemporary American economic and political conditions.
Both Federalism and anti-Federalism were the mixed issue of an interest
and a theory. The interest which lay behind Federalism was that of
well-to-do citizens in a stable political and social order, and this
interest aroused them to favor and to seek some form of political
organization which was capable of protecting their property and
promoting its interest. They were the friends of liberty because they
were in a position to benefit largely by the possession of liberty; and
they wanted a strong central government because only by such means could
their liberties, which consisted fundamentally in the ability to enjoy
and increase their property, be guaranteed. Their interests were
threatened by the disorganized state governments in two different but
connected respects. These governments did not seem able to secure either
internal order or external peace. In their domestic policy the states
threatened to become the prey of a factious radical democracy, and their
relations one to another were by way of being constantly embroiled.
Unless something could be done, it looked as if they would drift in a
condition either of internecine warfare without profit or, at best, of
peace without security. A centralized and efficient government would do
away with both of these threats. It would prevent or curb all but the
most serious sectional disputes, while at the same time it would provide
a much stronger guarantee for internal political order and social
stability. An equally strong interest lay at the roots of
anti-Federalism and it had its theory, though this theory was less
mature and definite. Behind the opposition to a centralized government
were the interests and the prejudices of the mass of the American
people,--the people who were, comparatively speaking, lacking in money,
in education, and in experience. The Revolutionary War, while not
exclusively the work of the popular element in the community, had
undoubtedly increased considerably its power and influence. A large
proportion of the well-to-do colonial Americans had been active or
passive Tories, and had either been ruined or politically disqualified
by the Revolution. Their successful opponents reorganized the state
governments in a radical democratic spirit. The power of the state was
usually concentrated in the hands of a single assembly, to whom both the
executive and the courts were subservient; and this method of
organization was undoubtedly designed to give immediate and complete
effect to the will of a popular majority. The temper of the local
democracies, which, for the most part, controlled the state governments,
was insubordinate, factious, and extremely independent. They disliked
the idea of a centralized Federal government because a supreme power
would be thereby constituted which could interfere with the freedom of
local public opinion and thwart its will. No less than the Federalists,
they believed in freedom; but the kind of freedom they wanted, was
freedom from anything but local interference. The ordinary American
democrat felt that the power of _his_ personality and _his_ point of
view would be diminished by the efficient centralization of political
authority. He had no definite intention of using the democratic state
governments for anti-social or revolutionary purposes, but he was
self-willed and unruly in temper; and his savage treatment of the Tories
during and after the Revolution had given him a taste of the sweets of
confiscation. The spirit of his democracy was self-reliant,
undisciplined, suspicious of authority, equalitarian, and
individualistic.
With all their differences, however, the Federalists and their opponents
had certain common opinions and interests, and it was these common
opinions and interests which prevented the split from becoming
irremediable. The men of both parties were individualist in spirit, and
they were chiefly interested in the great American task of improving
their own condition in this world. They both wanted a government which
would secure them freedom of action for this purpose. The difference
between them was really less a difference of purpose than of the means
whereby a purpose should be accomplished. The Federalists, representing
as they did chiefly the people of wealth and education, demanded a
government adequate to protect existing propertied rights; but they were
not seeking any exceptional privileges--except those traditionally
associated with the ownership of private property. The anti-Federalists,
on the other hand, having less to protect and more to acquire, insisted
rather upon being let alone than in being protected. They expressed
themselves sometimes in such an extremely insubordinate manner as almost
to threaten social disorder, but were very far from being fundamentally
anti-social in interest or opinion. They were all by way of being
property-owners, and they all expected to benefit by freedom from
interference in the acquisition of wealth. It was this community of
interest and point of view which prepared the way, not only for the
adoption of the Constitution, but for the loyalty it subsequently
inspired in the average American.
It remains none the less true, however, that the division of interest
and the controversy thereby provoked was sharp and brought about certain
very unfortunate consequences. Inasmuch as the anti-Federalists were
unruly democrats and were suspicious of any efficient political
authority, the Federalists came, justly or unjustly, to identify both
anti-Federalism and democracy with political disorder and social
instability. They came, that is, to have much the same opinion of
radical democracy as an English peer might have had at the time of the
French Revolution; and this prejudice, which was unjust but not
unnatural, was very influential in determining the character of the
Federal Constitution. That instrument was framed, not as the expression
of a democratic creed, but partly as a legal fortress against the
possible errors and failings of democracy. The federalist point of view
resembled that of the later constitutional liberals in France. The
political ideal and benefit which they prized most highly was that of
liberty, and the Constitution was framed chiefly for the purpose of
securing liberty from any possible dangers. Popular liberty must be
protected against possible administrative or executive tyranny by free
representative institutions. Individual liberty must be protected
against the action of an unjust majority by the strongest possible legal
guarantees. And above all the general liberties of the community must
not be endangered by any inefficiency of the government as a whole. The
only method whereby these complicated and, in a measure, conflicting
ends could be attained was by a system of checks and balances, which
would make the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the
government independent of one another, while at the same time endowing
each department with all the essentials of efficient action within its
own sphere. But such a method of political organization was calculated
to thwart the popular will, just in so far as that will did not conform
to what the Federalists believed to be the essentials of a stable
political and social order. It was antagonistic to democracy as that
word was then, and is still to a large extent, understood.
The extent of this antagonism to democracy, if not in intention at least
in effect, is frequently over-rated. The antagonism depends upon the
identification of democracy with a political organization for expressing
immediately and completely the will of the majority--whatever that will
may be; and such a conception of democracy contains only part of the
truth. Nevertheless the founders of the Constitution did succeed in
giving some effect to their distrust of the democratic principle, no
matter how conservatively defined; and this was at once a grave error on
their part and a grave misfortune for the American state. Founded as the
national government is, partly on a distrust of the American democracy,
it has always tended to make the democracy somewhat suspicious of the
national government. This mutual suspicion, while it has been limited in
scope and diminished by the action of time, constitutes a manifest
impediment to the efficient action of the American political system. The
great lesson of American political experience, as we shall see, is
rather that of interdependence than of incompatibility between an
efficient national organization and a group of radical democratic
institutions and ideals; and the meaning of this lesson has been
obscured, because the Federal organization has not been constituted in a
sufficiently democratic spirit, and because, consequently, it has tended
to provoke distrust on the part of good democrats. At every stage in the
history of American political ideas and practice we shall meet with the
unfortunate effects of this partial antagonism.
The error of the Federalists can, however, be excused by many
extenuating circumstances. Democracy as an ideal was misunderstood in
1786, and it was possessed of little or no standing in theory or
tradition. Moreover, the radical American democrats were doing much to
deserve the misgivings of the Federalists. Their ideas were narrow,
impracticable, and hazardous; and they were opposed to the essential
political need of the time--viz. the constitution of an efficient
Federal government. The Federalists may have misinterpreted and
perverted the proper purpose of American national organization, but they
could have avoided such misinterpretation only by an extraordinary
display of political insight and a heroic superiority to natural
prejudice. Their error sinks into insignificance compared with the
enormous service which they rendered to the American people and the
American cause. Without their help there might not have been any
American nation at all, or it might have been born under a far darker
cloud of political suspicion and animosity. The instrument which they
created, with all its faults, proved capable of becoming both the organ
of an efficient national government and the fundamental law of a
potentially democratic state. It has proved capable of flexible
development both in function and in purpose, and it has been developed
in both these directions without any sacrifice of integrity.
Its success has been due to the fact that its makers, with all their
apprehensions about democracy, were possessed of a wise and positive
political faith. They believed in liberty. They believed that the
essential condition of fruitful liberty was an efficient central
government. They knew that no government could be efficient unless its
powers equaled its responsibilities. They were willing to trust to such
a government the security and the welfare of the American people. The
Constitution has proved capable of development chiefly as the instrument
of these positive political ideas. Thanks to the theory of implied
powers, to the liberal construction of the Supreme Court during the
first forty years of its existence, and to the results of the Civil War
the Federal government has, on the whole, become more rather than less
efficient as the national political organ of the American people. Almost
from the start American life has grown more and more national in
substance, in such wise that a rigid constitution which could not have
been developed in a national direction would have been an increasing
source of irritation and protest. But this reënforcement of the
substance of American national life has, until recently, found an
adequate expression in the increasing scope and efficiency of the
Federal government. The Federalists had the insight to anticipate the
kind of government which their country needed; and this was a great and
a rare achievement--all the more so because they were obliged in a
measure to impose it on their fellow-countrymen.
There is, however, another face to the shield. The Constitution was the
expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears.
It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the
bulwark of certain individual and local rights. The Federalists sought
to surround private property, freedom of contract, and personal liberty
with an impregnable legal fortress; and they were forced by their
opponents to amend the original draft of the Constitution in order to
include a still more stringent bill of individual and state rights. Now
I am far from pretending that these legal restrictions have not had
their value in American national history, and were not the expression of
an essential element in the composition and the ideal of the American
nation. The security of private property and personal liberty, and a
proper distribution of activity between the local and the central
governments, demanded at that time, and within limits still demand,
adequate legal guarantees. It remains none the less true, however, that
every popular government should in the end, and after a necessarily
prolonged deliberation, possess the power of taking any action, which,
in the opinion of a decisive majority of the people, is demanded by the
public welfare. Such is not the case with the government organized
under the Federal Constitution. In respect to certain fundamental
provisions, which necessarily receive the most rigid interpretation on
the part of the courts, it is practically unmodifiable. A very small
percentage of the American people can in this respect permanently thwart
the will of an enormous majority, and there can be no justification for
such a condition on any possible theory of popular Sovereignty. This
defect has not hitherto had very many practical inconveniences, but it
is an absolute violation of the theory and the spirit of American
democratic institutions. The time may come when the fulfillment of a
justifiable democratic purpose may demand the limitation of certain
rights, to which the Constitution affords such absolute guarantees; and
in that case the American democracy might be forced to seek by
revolutionary means the accomplishment of a result which should be
attainable under the law.
It was, none the less, a great good thing that the Union under the new
Constitution triumphed. Americans have more reason to be proud of its
triumph than of any other event in their national history. The formation
of an effective nation out of the thirteen original colonies was a
political achievement for which there was no historical precedent. Up to
that time large countries had been brought, if not held, together by
military force or by a long process of gradually closer historical
association. Small and partly independent communities had combined one
with another only on compulsion. The necessities of joint defense might
occasionally drive them into temporary union, but they would not stay
united. They preferred a precarious and tumultuous independence to a
combination with neighboring communities, which brought security at the
price of partial subordination and loyal coöperation. Even the provinces
which composed the United Netherlands never submitted to an effective
political union during the active and vital period of their history. The
small American states had apparently quite as many reasons for
separation as the small Grecian and Italian states. The military
necessities of the Revolution had welded them only into a loose and
feeble confederation, and a successful revolution does not constitute a
very good precedent for political subordination. The colonies were
divided from one another by difficulties of communication, by
variations in economic conditions and social customs, by divergent
interests, and above all by a rampant provincial and separatist spirit.
On the other hand, they were united by a common language, by a common
political and legal tradition, and by the fact that none of them had
ever been really independent sovereign states. Nobody dared or cared to
object to union in the abstract; nobody advocated the alternative of
complete separation; it was only a strong efficient union which aroused
the opposition of the Clintons and the Patrick Henrys. Nevertheless, the
conditions making for separation have the appearance of being more
insistent and powerful than the conditions making for an effective
union. Disunion was so easy. Union was so difficult. If the states had
only kept on drifting a little longer, they would, at least for a while,
inevitably have drifted apart. They were saved from such a fate chiefly
by the insight and energy of a few unionist leaders--of whom Washington
and Hamilton were the most important.
Perhaps American conditions were such that eventually some kind of a
national government was sure to come; but the important point is that
when it came, it came as the result of forethought and will rather than
of compulsion. "It seems to have been reserved," says Hamilton in the
very first number of the _Federalist_, "to the people of this country by
their conduct and example, to decide the important question whether
societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good
government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever
destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and
force." Americans deliberately selected the better part. It is true that
the evil effects of a loose union were only too apparent, and that
public safety, order, and private property were obviously endangered by
the feeble machinery of Federal government. Nevertheless, conditions had
not become intolerable. The terrible cost of disunion in money, blood,
humiliation, and hatred had not actually been paid. It might well have
seemed cheaper to most Americans to drift on a little longer than to
make the sacrifices and to undertake the labor demanded by the formation
of an effective union. There were plenty of arguments by which a policy
of letting things alone could be plausibly defended, and the precedents
were all in its favor. Other people had acquired such political
experience as they were capable of assimilating, first by drifting into
some intolerable excess or some distressing error, and then by
undergoing some violent process of purgation or reform. But it is the
distinction of our own country that at the critical moment of its
history, the policy of drift was stopped before a virulent disease had
necessitated a violent and exhausting remedy.
This result was achieved chiefly by virtue of capable, energetic, and
patriotic leadership. It is stated that if the Constitution had been
subjected to a popular vote as soon as the labors of the Convention
terminated, it would probably have been rejected in almost every state
in the Union. That it was finally adopted, particularly by certain
important states, was distinctly due to the conversion of public
opinion, by means of powerful and convincing argument. The American
people steered the proper course because their leaders convinced them of
the proper course to steer; and the behavior of the many who followed
behind is as exemplary as is that of the few who pointed the way. A
better example could not be asked of the successful operation of the
democratic institutions, and it would be as difficult to find its
parallel in the history of our own as in the history of European
countries.
II
FEDERALISM AND REPUBLICANISM AS OPPONENTS
Fortunately for the American nation the unionists, who wrought the
Constitution, were substantially the same body of men as the Federalist
party who organized under its provisions an efficient national
government. The work of Washington, Hamilton, and their associates
during the first two administrations was characterized by the same
admirable qualities as the work of the makers of the Constitution, and
it is of similar importance. A vigorous, positive, constructive national
policy was outlined and carried substantially into effect,--a policy
that implied a faith in the powers of an efficient government to advance
the national interest, and which justified the faith by actually meeting
the critical problems of the time with a series of wise legislative
measures. Hamilton's part in this constructive legislation was, of
course, more important than it had been in the framing of the
Constitution. During Washington's two administrations the United States
was governed practically by his ideas, if not by his will; and the sound
and unsound parts of his political creed can consequently be more
definitely disentangled than they can be during the years when the
Constitution was being wrought. The Constitution was in many respects a
compromise, whereas the ensuing constructive legislation was a tolerably
pure example of Hamiltonian Federalism. It will be instructive,
consequently, to examine the trend of this Hamiltonian policy, and seek
to discover wherein it started the country on the right path, and
wherein it sought to commit the national government to a more dubious
line of action.
Hamilton's great object as Secretary of the Treasury was that of making
the organization of the national finances serve the cause of a
constructive national policy. He wished to strengthen the Federal
government by a striking exhibition of its serviceability, and by
creating both a strong sentiment and an influential interest in its
favor. To this end he committed the nation to a policy of scrupulous
financial honesty, which has helped to make it ever since the mainstay
of sound American finance. He secured the consent of Congress to the
recognition at their face value of the debts incurred during the war
both by the Confederacy and by the individual states. He created in the
National Bank an efficient fiscal agent for the Treasury Department and
a means whereby it could give stability to the banking system of the
country. Finally he sought by means of his proposed fiscal and
commercial policy to make the central government the effective promoter
of a wholesome and many-sided national development. He detected the
danger to political stability and self-control which would result from
the continued growth of the United States as a merely agricultural and
trading community, and he saw that it was necessary to cultivate
manufacturing industries and technical knowledge and training, because
diversified activity and a well-rounded social and economic life brings
with it national balance and security.
Underlying the several aspects of Hamilton's policy can be discerned a
definite theory of governmental functions. The central government is to
be used, not merely to maintain the Constitution, but to promote the
national interest and to consolidate the national organization. Hamilton
saw clearly that the American Union was far from being achieved when
the Constitution was accepted by the states and the machinery of the
Federal government set in motion. A good start had been made, but the
way in which to keep what had been gained was to seek for more. Unionism
must be converted into a positive policy which labored to strengthen the
national interest and organization, discredit possible or actual
disunionist ideas and forces, and increase the national spirit. All this
implied an active interference with the natural course of American
economic and political business and its regulation and guidance in the
national direction. It implied a conscious and indefatigable attempt on
the part of the national leaders to promote the national welfare. It
implied the predominance in American political life of the men who had
the energy and the insight to discriminate between those ideas and
tendencies which promoted the national welfare, and those ideas and
tendencies whereby it was imperiled. It implied, in fine, the
perpetuation of the same kind of leadership which had guided the country
safely through the dangers of the critical period, and the perpetuation
of the purposes which inspired that leadership.
So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of
Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other
respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency. On the persistent
vitality of Hamilton's national principle depends the safety of the
American republic and the fertility of the American idea, but he did not
seek a sufficiently broad, popular basis for the realization of those
ideas. He was betrayed by his fears and by his lack of faith. Believing
as he did, and far more than he had any right to believe, that he was
still fighting for the cause of social stability and political order
against the seven devils of anarchy and dissolution, he thought it
necessary to bestow upon the central government the support of a strong
special interest. During the Constitutional Convention he had failed to
secure the adoption of certain institutions which in his opinion would
have established as the guardian of the Constitution an aristocracy of
ability; and he now insisted all the more upon the plan of attaching to
the Federal government the support of well-to-do people. As we have
seen, the Constitution had been framed and its adoption secured chiefly
by citizens of education and means; and the way had been prepared,
consequently, for the attempt of Hamilton to rally this class as a class
more than ever to the support of the Federal government. They were the
people who had most to lose by political instability or inefficiency,
and they must be brought to lend their influence to the perpetuation of
a centralized political authority. Hence he believed a considerable
national debt to be a good thing for the Federal national interest, and
he insisted strenuously upon the assumption by the Federal government of
the state war-debts. He conceived the Constitution and the Union as a
valley of peace and plenty which had to be fortified against the
marauders by the heavy ramparts of borrowed money and the big guns of a
propertied interest.
In so doing Hamilton believed that he was (to vary the metaphor) loading
the ship of state with a necessary ballast, whereas in truth he was
disturbing its balance and preventing it from sailing free. He succeeded
in imbuing both men of property and the mass of the "plain people" with
the idea that the well-to-do were the peculiar beneficiaries of the
American Federal organization, the result being that the rising
democracy came more than ever to distrust the national government.
Instead of seeking to base the perpetuation of the Union upon the
interested motives of a minority of well-to-do citizens, he would have
been far wiser to have frankly intrusted its welfare to the good-will of
the whole people. But unfortunately he was prevented from so doing by
the limitation both of his sympathies and ideas. He was possessed by the
English conception of a national state, based on the domination of
special privileged orders and interests; and he failed to understand
that the permanent support of the American national organization could
not be found in anything less than the whole American democracy. The
American Union was a novel and a promising political creation, not
because it was a democracy, for there had been plenty of previous
democracies, and not because it was a nation, for there had been plenty
of previous nations, but precisely and entirely because it was a
democratic nation,--a nation committed by its institutions and
aspirations to realize the democratic idea.
Much, consequently, as we may value Hamilton's work and for the most
part his ideas, it must be admitted that the popular disfavor with
which he came to be regarded had its measure of justice. This disfavor
was indeed partly the result of his resolute adherence to a wise but an
unpopular foreign policy; and the way in which this policy was carried
through by Washington, Hamilton, and their followers, in spite of the
general dislike which it inspired, deserves the warmest praise. But
Hamilton's unpopularity was fundamentally due to deeper causes. He and
his fellow-Federalists did not understand their fellow-countrymen and
sympathize with their purposes, and naturally they were repaid with
misunderstanding and suspicion. He ceased, after Washington's
retirement, to be a national leader, and became the leader of a faction;
and before his death his party ceased to be the national party, and came
to represent only a section and a class. In this way it irretrievably
lost public support, and not even the miserable failure of Jefferson's
policy of embargo could persuade the American people to restore the
Federalists to power. As a party organization they disappeared entirely
after the second English war, and unfortunately much that was good in
Hamilton's political point of view disappeared with the bad. But by its
failure one good result was finally established. For better or worse the
United States had become a democracy as well as a nation, and its
national task was not that of escaping the dangers of democracy, but of
realizing its responsibilities and opportunities.
It did not take Hamilton's opponents long to discover that his ideas and
plans were in some respects inimical to democracy; and the consequence
was that Hamilton was soon confronted by one of the most implacable and
unscrupulous oppositions which ever abused a faithful and useful public
servant. This opposition was led by Jefferson, and while it most
unfortunately lacked Hamilton's statesmanship and sound constructive
ideas, it possessed the one saving quality which Hamilton himself
lacked: Jefferson was filled with a sincere, indiscriminate, and
unlimited faith in the American people. He was according to his own
lights a radical and unqualified democrat, and as a democrat he fought
most bitterly what he considered to be the aristocratic or even
monarchic tendency of Hamilton's policy. Much of the denunciation which
he and his followers lavished upon Hamilton was unjust, and much of the
fight which they put up against his measures was contrary to the public
welfare. They absolutely failed to give him credit for the patriotism of
his intentions or for the merit of his achievements, and their
unscrupulous and unfair tactics established a baleful tradition in
American party warfare. But Jefferson was wholly right in believing that
his country was nothing, if not a democracy, and that any tendency to
impair the integrity of the democratic idea could be productive only of
disaster.
Unfortunately Jefferson's conception of democracy was meager, narrow,
and self-contradictory; and just because his ideas prevailed, while
Hamilton toward the end of his life lost his influence, the consequences
of Jefferson's imperfect conception of democracy have been much more
serious than the consequences of Hamilton's inadequate conception of
American nationality. In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to
extreme individualism. He conceived a democratic society to be composed
of a collection of individuals, fundamentally alike in their abilities
and deserts; and in organizing such a society, politically, the prime
object was to provide for the greatest satisfaction of its individual
members. The good things of life which had formerly been monopolized by
the privileged few, were now to be distributed among all the people. It
was unnecessary, moreover, to make any very artful arrangements, in
order to effect an equitable distribution. Such distribution would take
care of itself, provided nobody enjoyed any special privileges and
everybody had equal opportunities. Once these conditions were secured,
the motto of a democratic government should simply be "Hands Off." There
should be as little government as possible, because persistent
governmental interference implied distrust in popular efficiency and
good-will; and what government there was, should be so far as possible
confided to local authorities. The vitality of a democracy resided in
its extremities, and it would be diminished rather than increased by
specialized or centralized guidance. Its individual members needed
merely to be protected against privileges and to be let alone,
whereafter the native goodness of human nature would accomplish the
perfect consummation.
Thus Jefferson sought an essentially equalitarian and even socialistic
result by means of an essentially individualistic machinery. His theory
implied a complete harmony both in logic and in effect between the idea
of liberty and the idea of equality; and just in so far as there is any
antagonism between those ideas, his whole political system becomes
unsound and impracticable. Neither is there any doubt as to which of
these ideas Jefferson and his followers really attached the more
importance. Their mouths have always been full of the praise of liberty;
and unquestionably they have really believed it to be the corner-stone
of their political and social structure. None the less, however, is it
true that in so far as any antagonism has developed in American life
between liberty and equality, the Jeffersonian Democrats have been found
on the side of equality. Representing as they did the democratic
principle, it is perfectly natural and desirable that they should fight
the battle of equality in a democratic state; and their error has been,
not their devotion to equality, but their inability to discern wherein
any antagonism existed between liberty and equality, and the extent to
which they were sacrificing a desirable liberty to an undesirable
equality.
On this, as on so many other points, Hamilton's political philosophy was
much more clearly thought out than that of Jefferson. He has been
accused by his opponents of being the enemy of liberty; whereas in point
of fact, he wished, like the Englishman he was, to protect and encourage
liberty, just as far as such encouragement was compatible with good
order, because he realized that genuine liberty would inevitably issue
in fruitful social and economic inequalities. But he also realized that
genuine liberty was not merely a matter of a constitutional declaration
of rights. It could be protected only by an energetic and clear-sighted
central government, and it could be fertilized only by the efficient
national organization of American activities. For national organization
demands in relation to individuals a certain amount of selection, and a
certain classification of these individuals according to their abilities
and deserts. It is just this kind or effect of liberty which Jefferson
and his followers have always disliked and discouraged. They have been
loud in their praise of legally constituted rights; but they have shown
an instinctive and an implacable distrust of intellectual and moral
independence, and have always sought to suppress it in favor of
intellectual and moral conformity. They have, that is, stood for the
sacrifice of liberty--in so far as liberty meant positive intellectual
and moral achievement--to a certain kind of equality.
I do not mean to imply by the preceding statement that either Jefferson
or his followers were the conscious enemies of moral and intellectual
achievement. On the contrary, they appeared to themselves in their
amiable credulity to be the friends and guardians of everything
admirable in human life; but their good intentions did not prevent them
from actively or passively opposing positive intellectual and moral
achievement, directed either towards social or individual ends. The
effect of their whole state of mind was negative and fatalistic. They
approved in general of everything approvable; but the things of which
they actively approved were the things which everybody in general was
doing. Their point of view implied that society and individuals could be
made better without actually planning the improvement or building up an
organization for the purpose; and this assertion brings me to the
deepest-lying difference between Hamilton and Jefferson. Jefferson's
policy was at bottom the old fatal policy of drift, whose distorted body
was concealed by fair-seeming clothes, and whose ugly face was covered
by a mask of good intentions. Hamilton's policy was one of energetic and
intelligent assertion of the national good. He knew that the only method
whereby the good could prevail either in individual or social life was
by persistently willing that it should prevail and by the adoption of
intelligent means to that end. His vision of the national good was
limited; but he was absolutely right about the way in which it was to be
achieved.
Hamilton was not afraid to exhibit in his own life moral and
intellectual independence. He was not afraid to incur unpopularity for
pursuing what he believed to be a wise public policy, and the general
disapprobation under which he suffered during the last years of his
life, while it was chiefly due, as we have seen, to his distrust of the
American democracy, was also partly due to his high conception of the
duties of leadership. Jefferson, on the other hand, afforded an equally
impressive example of the statesman who assiduously and intentionally
courted popular favor. It was, of course, easy for him to court popular
favor, because he understood the American people extremely well and
really sympathized with them; but he never used the influence which he
thereby obtained for the realization of any positive or formative
purpose, which might be unpopular. His policy, while in office, was one
of fine phrases and temporary expedients, some of which necessarily
incurred odium, but none of which were pursued by him or his followers
with any persistence. Whatever the people demanded, their leaders should
perform, including, if necessary, a declaration of war against England.
It was to be a government of and by the people, not a government for the
people by popular but responsible leaders; and the leaders to whom the
people delegated their authority had in theory no right to pursue an
unpopular policy. The people were to guide their leaders, not their
leaders the people; and any intellectual or moral independence and
initiative on the part of the leaders in a democracy was to be condemned
as undemocratic. The representatives of a Sovereign people were in the
same position as the courtiers of an absolute monarch. It was their
business to flatter and obey.
III
FEDERALISM AND REPUBLICANISM AS ALLIES
It is not surprising, consequently, that Jefferson, who had been a lion
in opposition, was transformed by the assumption of power into a lamb.
Inasmuch as he had been denouncing every act of the Federalists since
the consummation of the Union as dangerous to American liberties or as
inimical to the public welfare, it was to be anticipated, when he and
his party assumed office, that they would seek both to tear down the
Federalist structure and rear in its place a temple of the true
Republican faith. Not only did nothing of the kind follow, but nothing
of the kind was even attempted. Considering the fulminations of the
Republicans during the last ten years of Federalist domination,
Jefferson's first Inaugural is a bewildering document. The recent past,
which had but lately been so full of dangers, was ignored; and the
future, the dangers of which were much more real, was not for the moment
considered. Jefferson was sworn in with his head encircled by a halo of
beautiful phrases; and he and his followers were so well satisfied with
this beatific vision that they entirely overlooked the desirability of
redeeming their own past or of providing for their country's future.
Sufficient unto the day was the popularity thereof. The Federalists
themselves must be conciliated, and the national organization achieved
by them is by implication accepted. The Federalist structure, so
recently the prison of the free American spirit, becomes itself a large
part of the temple of democracy. The Union is no longer inimical to
liberty. For the first time we begin to hear from good Republican
mouths, some sacred words about the necessary connection of liberty and
union. Jefferson celebrated his triumph by adopting the work, if not the
creed, of his adversaries.
The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure
of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the
adoption of the Constitution by the states. It was the first practical
indication that democracy and Federalism were not as radically
antagonistic as their extreme partisans had believed; and it was also
the first indication that the interests which were concealed behind the
phrases of the two parties were not irreconcilable. When the democracy
rallied to the national organization, the American state began to be a
democratic nation. The alliance was as yet both fragile and superficial.
It was founded on a sacrifice by the two parties, not merely of certain
errors and misconceptions, but also of certain convictions, which had
been considered essential. The Republicans tacitly admitted the
substantial falsity of their attacks upon the Federal organization. The
many Federalists who joined their opponents abandoned without scruple
the whole spirit and purpose of the Hamiltonian national policy. But at
any rate the reconciliation was accomplished. The newly founded American
state was for the time being saved from the danger of being torn asunder
by two rival factions, each representing irreconcilable ideas and
interests. The Union, which had been celebrated in 1789, was consummated
in 1801. Its fertility was still to be proved.
When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the
existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American
democracy was almost completely woven. Thereafter the American people
had only to wear it and keep it in repair. The policy announced in
Jefferson's first Inaugural was in all important respects merely a
policy of conservatism. The American people were possessed of a set of
political institutions, which deprived them of any legitimate grievances
and supplied them with every reasonable opportunity; and their political
duty was confined to the administration of these institutions in a
faithful spirit and their preservation from harm. The future contained
only one serious danger. Such liberties were always open to attack, and
there would always be designing men whose interest it was to attack
them. The great political responsibility of the American democracy was
to guard itself against such assaults; and should they succeed in this
task they need have no further concern about their future. Their
political salvation was secure. They had placed it, as it were, in a
good sound bank. It would be sure to draw interest provided the bank
were conservatively managed--that is, provided it were managed by loyal
Republicans. There was no room or need for any increase in the fund,
because it already satisfied every reasonable purpose. But it must not
be diminished; and it must not be exposed to any risk of diminution by
hazardous speculative investments.
During the next fifty years, the American democracy accepted almost
literally this Jeffersonian tradition. Until the question of slavery
became acute, they ceased to think seriously about political problems.
The lawyers were preoccupied with certain important questions of
constitutional interpretation, which had their political implications;
but the purpose of these expositions of our fundamental law was the
affirmation, the consolidation, and towards the end, the partial
restriction of the existing Federalist organization. In this as in other
respects the Americans of the second and third generations were merely
preserving what their fathers had wrought. Their political institutions
were good, in so far as they were not disturbed. They might become bad,
only in case they were perverted. The way to guard against such
perversion was, of course, to secure the election of righteous
democrats. From the traditional American point of view, it was far more
important to get the safe candidates elected than it was to use the
power so obtained for any useful political achievement. In the hands of
unsafe men,--that is, one's political opponents,--the government might
be perverted to dangerous uses, whereas in the hands of safe men, it
could at best merely be preserved in safety. Misgovernment was a
greater danger than good government was a benefit, because good
government, particularly on the part of Federal officials, consisted,
apart from routine business, in letting things alone. Thus the furious
interest, which the good American took in getting himself and his
associates elected, could be justified by reasons founded on the
essential nature of the traditional political system.
The good American democrat had, of course, another political duty
besides that of securing the election of himself and his friends. His
political system was designed, not merely to deprive him of grievances,
but to offer him superlative opportunities. In taking the utmost
advantage of those opportunities, he was not only fulfilling his duty to
himself, but he was helping to realize the substantial purpose of
democracy. Just as it was the function of the national organization to
keep itself undefiled and not to interfere, so it was his personal
function to make hay while the sun was shining. The triumph of Jefferson
and the defeat of Hamilton enabled the natural individualism of the
American people free play. The democratic political system was
considered tantamount in practice to a species of vigorous, licensed,
and purified selfishness. The responsibilities of the government were
negative; those of the individual were positive. And it is no wonder
that in the course of time his positive responsibilities began to look
larger and larger. This licensed selfishness became more domineering in
proportion as it became more successful. If a political question arose,
which in any way interfered with his opportunities, the good American
began to believe that his democratic political machine was out of gear.
Did Abolitionism create a condition of political unrest, and interfere
with good business, then Abolitionists were wicked men, who were
tampering with the ark of the Constitution; and in much the same way the
modern reformer, who proposes policies looking toward a restriction in
the activity of corporations and stands in the way of the immediate
transaction of the largest possible volume of business, is denounced as
un-American. These were merely crude ways of expressing the spirit of
traditional American democracy,--which was that of a rampant
individualism, checked only by a system of legally constituted rights.
The test of American national success was the comfort and prosperity of
the individual; and the means to that end,--a system of unrestricted
individual aggrandizement and collective irresponsibility.
The alliance between Federalism and democracy on which this traditional
system was based, was excellent in many of its effects; but
unfortunately it implied on the part of both the allies a sacrifice of
political sincerity and conviction. And this sacrifice was more
demoralizing to the Republicans than to the Federalists, because they
were the victorious party. A central government, constructed on the
basis of their democratic creed, would have been a government whose
powers were smaller, more rigid, and more inefficiently distributed than
those granted under our Federal Constitution--as may be seen from the
various state constitutions subsequently written under Jeffersonian
influence. When they obtained power either they should have been
faithful to their convictions and tried to modify the Federal machinery
in accordance therewith, or they should have modified their ideas in
order to make them square with their behavior. But instead of seriously
and candidly considering the meaning of their own actions, they opened
their mouths wide enough to swallow their own past and then deliberately
shut their eyes. They accepted the national organization as a fact and
as a condition of national safety; but they rejected it as a lesson in
political wisdom, and as an implicit principle of political action. By
so doing they began that career of intellectual lethargy,
superficiality, and insincerity which ever since has been characteristic
of official American political thought.
This lack of intellectual integrity on the part of the American
democracy both falsified the spirit in which our institutions had
originated, and seriously compromised their future success. The Union
had been wrought by virtue of vigorous, responsible, and enterprising
leadership, and of sound and consistent political thinking. It was to be
perpetuated by a company of men, who disbelieved in enterprising and
responsible leadership, and who had abandoned and tended to disparage
anything but the most routine political ideas. The American people,
after passing through a period of positive achievement, distinguished in
all history for the powerful application of brains to the solution of an
organic political problem--the American people, after this almost
unprecedented exhibition of good-will and good judgment, proceeded to
put a wholly false interpretation on their remarkable triumph. They
proceeded, also, to cultivate a state of mind which has kept them
peculiarly liable to intellectual ineptitude and conformity. The mixture
of optimism, conservatism, and superficiality, which has until recently
characterized their political point of view, has made them almost blind
to the true lessons of their own national experience.
The best that can be said on behalf of this traditional American system
of political ideas is that it contained the germ of better things. The
combination of Federalism and Republicanism which formed the substance
of the system, did not constitute a progressive and formative political
principle, but it pointed in the direction of a constructive formula.
The political leaders of the "era of good feeling" who began to use with
some degree of conviction certain comely phrases about the eternal and
inseparable alliance between "liberty and union" were looking towards
the promised land of American democratic fulfillment. As we shall see,
the kind of liberty and the kind of union which they had in mind were by
no means indissolubly and inseparably united; and both of these words
had to be transformed from a negative and legal into a positive moral
and social meaning before the boasted alliance could be anything but
precarious and sterile. But if for liberty we substitute the word
democracy, which means something more than liberty, and if for union, we
substitute the phrase American nationality, which means so much more
than a legal union, we shall be looking in the direction of a fruitful
alliance between two supplementary principles. It can, I believe, be
stated without qualification that wherever the nationalist idea and
tendency has been divided from democracy, its achievements have been
limited and partially sterilized. It can also be stated that the
separation of the democratic idea from the national principle and
organization has issued not merely in sterility, but in moral and
political mischief. All this must remain mere assertion for the present;
but I shall hope gradually to justify these assertions by an examination
of the subsequent course of American political development.