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New Nation Reading Assignment on Alexander Hamilton 1. Charles A. Beard, An Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution (1913)
We have now come to the colossal genius of the new system, Alexander Hamilton. It is
true, that he had little part in the formation of the Constitution, but it was his
organizing ability that made it a real instrument bottomed on all the substantial
interests of the time. It was he who saw most keenly the precise character of the social
groups which would have to be rallied to the new government in order to draw support away
from the states and give the federal system a firm foundation. He perceived that
governments were not made out of thin air and abstract principles. He knew that the
Constitution was designed to accomplish certain definite objects, affecting in its
operation certain definite groups of property rights in society. He saw that these
interests were at first inchoate, in process of organization, and he achieved the task of
completing their consolidation and attaching them to the federal government.... The conclusion to be reached from this evidence is that Hamilton did not have in 1787
any more than a petty amount of public securities which might appreciate under a new
system; that he did have some western land; but that an extensive augmentation of his
personal fortune was no consideration with him. The fact that he died a poor man is
conclusive evidence of this fact. That he was swayed throughout the period of the
formation of the Constitution by large policies of government--not by any of the personal
interests so often ascribed to him-- must therefore be admitted. Nevertheless, it is
apparent from the additional evidence given here that it was no mere abstract political
science which dominated his principles of government. He knew at first hand the stuff of
which government is made. 2. Vernon L. Parrington, The Colonial Mind v.1 (1927)
But when we turn from the administrator and statesman to the creative thinker, there is
another story to tell...He was utterly devoid of sentiment, and without a shred of
idealism, unless a certain grandiose quality in his conceptions be counted idealism. His
absorbing interests in the rising system of credit and finance, his cool unconcern for the
social consequences of his policies, reveal his weakness. In spite of his brilliance
Hamilton was circumscribed by the limitations of the practical man. ..."A very great man," Woodrow Wilson has called him, "but not a great
American." In the larger historical meaning of the term, in its democratic
implications, that judgment is true; but in the light of our industrial history, with its
corporate development and governmental subsidies, it does not seem so true. As the
creative organizer of a political state answering the needs of a capitalistic order -- a
state destined to grow stronger as imperialistic ambitions mount -- he seems the most
modern and most American of our eighteenth century leaders, one to whom our industrialism
owes a very great debt, but from whom our democratic liberalism has received nothing. 3. Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia (1966)
When he rose in his place, delegates saw one of the most extraordinary of the citizens
American had produced and would produce in the future. Everyone in the room knew Alexander
Hamilton and his reputation. Born in the West Indies, he had come to American as a youth.
At thirty-two he was already famous and already hated in certain quarters. Impatient with
the slow-witted, humble with those he loved, fiery yet capable of cold arrogance, Hamilton
carried always some slight air of his foreign, mysterious birth -- something not truly of
America and its thirteen sturdy provincial states. To John Adams, Hamilton was "the
bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar." "His manners," wrote a Convention
delegate, "are tinctured with stiffness, and sometimes with a degree of vanity that
is highly disagreeable." 4. Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton (1979).
Hamilton's audacious mission in life was to remake American society in accordance with
his own values....Infused into an oligarchical, agrarian social order, money would be the
leaven, the fermenting yeast, that would stimulate growth, change, prosperity, and
national strength. A passion for immortal Fame is characteristic of the romantic, and Hamilton was a
romantic to the core of his being. 5. Richard Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton: American (1999). The thread that runs through every chapter, and every aspect of Hamilton's life, is his
identity as an American. Like that of many Americans after him, this identity was adopted.
Hamilton's immigrant origin was no bar to his advancement....Hamilton was a nationalist
figure....Hamilton always and only , meant the United States [not a state as his country].
He looked forward to the time when his fellow citizens would consider themselves "a
race of Americans," and he either minimized America's regional differences or worked
to wear them down. He foresaw the material shape of the country far more clearly than any
other founder |