Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
great end he had in view; a centralizing capitalism would be more than
a match for a decentralizing agrarianism, and the power of the state
would augment with the increase of liquid wealth.
But granted that he lacked the intellectual qualities of the
philosopher, it does not follow that his significance diminishes. On
the contrary his very independence of contemporary European theory
enlarged his serviceableness to party. He was free to employ his
intelligence on the practical difficulties of a new and unprecedented
situation. English liberalism did not answer the needs of Federalism,
if indeed it could answer the needs of the country at large. The time
had come to decide whether the long movement of decentralization should
go further, and confirm the future government as a loose confederacy
of powerful states, or whether an attempt should be made to check
that movement and establish a counter tendency towards centralized,
organized control. If the former, it meant surrendering the country
to a democratic _laissez faire_, and there was nothing in the history
of political _laissez faire_ as it had developed in America, that
justified the principle to Hamilton. It had culminated in agrarianism
with legislative majorities riding down all obstacles, denying the
validity of any check upon its will, constitutional, legal or ethical.
The property interests of the minority had been rendered insecure.
There had been altogether too much _laissez faire_; what was needed
was sharp control of legislative majorities; the will of the majority
must be held within due metes and bounds. Even in the economic world
the principle of _laissez faire_ no longer satisfied the needs of
the situation. Parliamentary enactments had aided British interests
in their exploitation of America before the war; it was only common
sense for an American government to assist American business. The new
capitalism that was rising stood in need of governmental subsidies.
Business was languishing; infant industries could not compete on
even terms with the powerful British manufacturing interests, long
established and with ample capital. From a realistic contemplation of
these facts Hamilton deduced the guiding principle that has since been
followed, namely, that governmental interference with economic laws is
desirable when it aids business, but intolerable and unsound when it
aims at business regulation or control, or when it assists agriculture
or labor.
Throughout his career Hamilton was surprisingly consistent. His mind
hardened early as it matured early, and he never saw cause to challenge
the principles which he first espoused. He was what a friendly critic
would call a political realist, and an enemy would pronounce a cynic.
With the practical man’s contempt for theorists and idealists, he took
his stand on current fact. He looked to the past for guidance, trusting
to the wisdom of experience; those principles which have worked
satisfactorily heretofore may be expected to work satisfactorily in the
future. Whoever aspires to become a sane political leader must remember
that his business is not to construct Utopias, but to govern men; and
if he would succeed in that difficult undertaking he must be wise in
the knowledge of human nature. At the basis of Hamilton’s political
philosophy was the traditional Tory psychology. Failure to understand
human nature, he believed, was the fatal weakness of all democratic
theorists; they put into men’s breeches altruistic beings fitted only
for a Utopian existence. But when we consider men as they are, we
discover that they are little other than beasts, who if unrestrained
will turn every garden into a pigsty. Everywhere men are impelled by
the primitive lust of aggression, and the political philosopher must
adjust his system to this unhappy fact. He must not suffer the charge
of cynicism to emasculate his philosophy; “the goodness of government
consists in a vigorous execution,” rather than in amiable intentions;
it is the business of the practical man and not of the theorist.
It needs no very extensive reading in Hamilton to discover ample
justification for such an interpretation of his political philosophy;
the evidence lies scattered broadly through his pages. At the
precocious age of seventeen he laid down the thesis, “A vast majority
of mankind is entirely biassed by motives of self-interest”; and as
political systems are determined by the raw material of the mass of
the people, they must be conditioned by such egoism. A year later he
discovered in Hume the central principle of his philosophy:
Political writers, says a celebrated author, have established it
as a maxim, that, in contriving any system of government, and
fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, _every
man_ ought to be supposed a _knave_; and to have no other end,
in all his actions, but _private interest_. By this interest we
must govern him; and, by means of it, _make him co-operate to
public good_, notwithstanding his insatiable avarice and ambition.
Without this, we shall in vain boast of the advantages of _any
constitution_.[313]
At the age of twenty-seven he reiterated the doctrine, “The safest
reliance of every government, is on men’s interests. This is a
principle of human nature, on which all political speculation, to be
just, must be founded.”[314] Obviously this was not a pose of youthful
cynicism, but a sober judgment confirmed by observation and experience.
Accepting self-interest as the mainspring of human ambition, Hamilton
accepted equally the principle of class domination. From his reading
of history he discovered that the strong overcome the weak, and as
they grasp power they coalesce into a master group. This master group
will dominate, he believed, not only to further its interests, but to
prevent the spread of anarchy which threatens every society split into
factions and at the mercy of rival ambitions. In early days the master
group was a military order, later it became a landed aristocracy, in
modern times it is commercial; but always its power rests on property.
“That power which holds the purse-strings absolutely, must rule,” he
stated unequivocally. The economic masters of society of necessity
become the political masters. It is unthinkable that government should
not reflect the wishes of property, that it should be permanently
hostile to the greater economic interests; such hostility must destroy
it, for no man or group of men will be ruled by those whom they can
buy and sell. And in destroying itself it will give place to another
government, more wisely responsive to the master group; for even a
democratic people soon learns that any government is better than a
condition of anarchy, and a commercial people understands that a
government which serves the interests of men of property, serves the
interests of all, for if capital will not invest how shall labor
find employment? And if the economic masters do not organize society
efficiently, how shall the common people escape ruin?
Such are the fundamental principles which lie at the base of Hamilton’s
philosophy. He was in accord with John Adams and James Madison and
Noah Webster, in asserting the economic basis of government, with
its corollary of the class struggle. He not only accepted the rule
of property as inevitable, but as desirable. As an aristocrat he
deliberately allied himself with the wealthy. That men divide into
the rich and the poor, the wise and the foolish, he regarded as a
commonplace too evident to require argument. The explanation is
to be sought in human nature and human capacities. For the common
people, about whom Jefferson concerned himself with what seemed to
Hamilton sheer demagoguery, he felt only contempt. Their virtues and
capacities he had no faith in. “I am not much attached to the _majesty
of the multitude_,” he said during the debate over the Constitution,
“and waive all pretensions (founded on such conduct) to their
countenance.” His notorious comment--which the American democrat has
never forgiven him, “The people!--the people is a great beast!”--was
characteristically frank. Hamilton was no demagogue and nothing was
plainer to his logic than the proposition that if the people possessed
the capacity to rule, their weight of numbers would give them easy
mastery; whereas their yielding to the domination of the gifted few
proves their incapacity. A wise statesman, therefore, will consider
the people no further than to determine how government may be least
disturbed by their factional discontent, and kept free to pursue a
logical program. Under a republican form good government is difficult
to maintain, but not impossible. The people are easily deceived and
turned aside from their purpose; like children they are diverted by
toys; but if they become unruly they must be punished. Too much is at
stake in government for them to be permitted to muddle policies.
It is sufficiently clear that in tastes and convictions Hamilton
was a high Tory. The past to which he appealed was a Tory past, the
psychology which he accepted was a Tory psychology, the law and
order which he desired was a Tory law and order. His philosophy was
not liked by republican America, and he knew that it was not liked.
Practical business men accepted both his premises and conclusions, but
republicans under the spell of revolutionary idealism, and agrarians
suffering in their pocketbooks, would oppose them vigorously. He was
at pains, therefore, as a practical statesman, to dress his views in
a garb more seemly to plebeian prejudices, and like earlier Tories
he paraded an ethical justification for his Toryism. The current
Federalist dogma of the divine right of justice--_vox justiciae vox
dei_--was at hand to serve his purpose and he made free use of it.
But no ethical gilding could quite conceal a certain ruthlessness of
purpose; in practice justice became synonymous with expediency, and
expediency was curiously like sheer Tory will to power.
In certain of his principles Hamilton was a follower of Hobbes.
His philosophy conducted logically to the leviathan state, highly
centralized, coercive, efficient. But he was no idealist to exalt the
state as the divine repository of authority, an enduring entity apart
from the individual citizen and above him. He regarded the state as
a highly useful instrument, which in the name of law and order would
serve the interests of the powerful, and restrain the turbulence of
the disinherited. For in every government founded on coercion rather
than good will, the perennial unrest of those who are coerced is a
grave menace; in the end the exploited will turn fiercely upon the
exploiters. In such governments, therefore, self-interest requires
that social unrest shall be covered with opprobrium and put down by
the police power; and the sufficient test of a strong state lies in
its ability to protect the privileges of the minority against the
anarchy of the majority. In his eloquent declamation against anarchy
Hamilton was a conspicuous disciple of the law and order school. From
the grave difficulties of post-Revolutionary times with their agrarian
programs, he created a partisan argument for a leviathan state, which
fell upon willing ears; and in the Constitutional convention, which,
more than any other man, he was instrumental in assembling, he was the
outstanding advocate of the coercive state.
In his plan of government presented to the Convention, the principle
of centralized power was carried further than most would go, and his
supporting speeches expressed doctrines that startled certain of his
hearers. He was frankly a monarchist, and he urged the monarchical
principle with Hobbesian logic. “The principle chiefly intended to be