Alexander Hamilton

“Prejudice and private interest will be antagonists too powerful for public spirit and public good.”

After Laurens’s initiative to free the slaves is rejected, Hamilton is despondent. He knows that freeing slaves is the moral thing to do. However, the fact that the proposal gets dismissed with such haste is a sign to him that private interests and greed will always have the potential to override what is decent and ethical. He spent his life working against those who sought personal glory while in public office. 

“As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.” 

Hamilton believed that the conditions during a revolution were markedly different than those of peacetime. Anarchy was the result when the conditions of revolution overshot the end of a rebellion, and peacetime was still treated, in more minor ways, as a time of reduced warfare. One of his central themes would always be that power must be balanced, or it will harm the country.  

“The law is whatever is successfully argued and plausibly maintained.”

During one of the earliest meetings between Hamilton and Burr, Burr reveals his cynicism with the legal profession. Hamilton venerated the law and treated it with a respect approach religious devotion. Hamilton saw the law as a lucrative career path. He was willing to argue whatever would win cases for him, and refused to treat the law as if it were a subject of objective truths. 

“He thought America’s character would be defined by how it treated its vanquished enemies, and he wanted to graduate from bitter wartime grievances to the forgiving posture of peace.” 

Hamilton would be happy when the war ended, but he had no desire for retribution on the British from that point onward. He knew that good relations with England would be the key to America’s growing economy and commercial potential. He also wanted others to view the American Revolution in a positive light, and knew that any misbehavior by Americans towards their defeated enemies would be counterproductive to their global reputation.  

“Tis with governments as with individuals, first impressions and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and character.”

During the rise of anti-Tory bias, Hamilton asked readers to consider that the American project was being watched by the world. Their actions—both the government officials and the soldiers in the Continental Army—in the present would have consequences in the future. Hamilton was as concerned about the reputation of the American republic as he was about how people perceived him. 

“Hamilton believed that revolutions ended in tyranny because they glorified revolution as a permanent state of mind. A spirit of compromise and a concern with order were needed to balance the quest for liberty.”

Despite his fiery attacks on his enemies, Hamilton was willing to make comprises if his opponents could present logical, persuasive arguments. He was not a totalitarian because he never sought to enforce his views by abusing his office or employing military force when it was unwarranted. He worried that the new America could end in tyranny precisely because so many of his opponents were not willing to compromise on behalf of order.

“Of all the founders, Hamilton probably had the gravest doubts about the wisdom of the masses and wanted elected leaders who would guide them. This was the great paradox of his career: his optimistic view of America’s potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature. His faith in Americans never quite matched his faith in America itself.”

Hamilton was not misanthropic, but he knew that people were capricious. By installing wise leaders at the outset, he hoped to be able to keep America on a proper course, even while dissidents and the unwise might occasionally change the idea and trajectory of the country. Hamilton believed in ideals and their objective truths, but could not extend the same generous view to his fellow humans. 

“His eloquence seemed to require opposition to give it its full force.” 

Whenever he decided to write, Hamilton was always thorough and articulate. He was at his most impressive and eloquent, however, when someone attacked him. Hamilton needed an enemy, or a cause to fight against, to unlock the full potential of his writing and speaking abilities. Outside of massive projects like The Federalist Essays, polemics made the greatest show of his talents.  

“Americans often wonder how this moment could have spawned such extraordinary men as Hamilton and Madison. Part of the answer is that the Revolution produced an insatiable need for thinkers who could generate ideas and wordsmiths who could lucidly expound them. The immediate utility of ideas was an incalculable tonic for the founding generation. The fate of the democratic experiment depended upon political intellectuals who might have been marginalized at other periods.”

The creation of the American government, and the planning and strategy necessary to break away from England, required a level of intellectual rigor that is not required for much of modern politics. There are no projects facing modern presidents and lawmakers that are comparative in scale to the formation of a new governmental system. Thinkers appeared because they were needed during the Revolution. There is less demand for them in different political climates and times. 

“Washington was taciturn, once advising his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”

George Washington was reserved, quiet, and aloof by design. He expressed his persona in a way that kept distance between him, his men, and public citizens. His frequent silences and stoic demeanor gave him an air of gravity, but it was also a strategy to ensure that he did not make enemies unintentionally through flippant remarks or careless speech. This is one of the reasons why Hamilton was invaluable to Washington—he was able to convey Washington’s wishes in voluble, energetic form. 

“Wherever the end is required, the means are justified.”

James Madison argues in The Federalist Essays that results are what matter the most. What methods might be employed to bring about the achievement of a goal—such as the colonists defeating England—are justified as long as the outcome is in one’s favor. This philosophy can be used to justify the overthrow of an unjust government through violent means. But, as the barbarism of the French Revolution will show, the means used to achieve the ends can be unnecessarily cruel. 

“Perseverance in almost any plan is better than fickleness and fluctuation.”

Hamilton believed in being methodical while designing a plan, and then, once convinced that the plan was theoretically sound, sticking to it with complete commitment. He remained open to persuasion, as long as his opponents were willing to present equally methodical, logical arguments, but he valued the patience and fortitude required to persevere more than haste that masqueraded as decisiveness. 

“The rich could put their own interests above the national interest.” 

Hamilton was wary of men who sought to use public office to enrich themselves. This worry grew after he formed the Treasury office. He also knew that if the government was not unified under a central power, the rich would be able to exploit the governments within their individual states. Personal interest, in this quote, refers to the government of a state putting its well-being over that of the national government. 

“Again and again in his career, Hamilton committed the same political error: he never knew when to stop, and the resulting excesses led him into irremediable indiscretions.” 

Even after George Washington tells Hamilton that he will be better off if he writes fewer polemics, Hamilton cannot stop. His sense of honor and injustice—whether distorted or not—compelled him to defend himself at all times, and to go to sometimes absurd lengths in the process. He did the most damage to himself while defending himself. 

“No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.”

Hamilton was subjected to constant attacks in newspapers and pamphlets. Even after admitting his affair with Maria Reynolds, it remained one of the favorite subjects of opponents who wrote and spoke against him. He eventually realized that the attacks were wearing him down. Despite his innocence in most matters, and his public defenses of himself, Hamilton knew he’d never be able to change everyone’s mind. 

“If a charge was made often enough, people assumed in the end that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent.”

Hamilton’s critics continued to attack him for the same reasons because it is a good political strategy. Hamilton knew that people would believe something—or at least, become more open to its possibility—if they heard it enough times. This was one of the great frustrations of his life: He could defend himself and prove that he was innocent of many charges, but his arguments and pamphlets did not actually change the minds of those who had already decided on another version of the truth. 

“Energy is a very different thing from violence.”

In the aftermath of the passage of the Sedition Acts, Hamilton urged caution to those who felt they had to strike back against Adams. Public opinion was against him and the Federalists, and the public felt that the attempts to clamp down on dissent against the government were an attack on free speech. Hamilton was wary of the energy that was growing in his opponents but knew that it could become something positive if diverted into productive actions before escalating to violence. 

“Fisher Ames observed of Hamilton that the common people don’t want leaders ‘whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads.’”

Ames’s viewpoint is one of the reasons why Jefferson worked so hard to cultivate an air of normal dress, normal speech, and the appearance of being one of the citizens, rather than an aristocrat from the ruling class. Hamilton had difficulties connecting with the public at large, given that every time he wrote or spoke—and because he wrote and spoke with such authoritative certainty—the gap between his intellect and theirs was obvious. Jefferson often pretended to know less than was the case, to avoid intimidating people with his knowledge. 

“The first great skeptic of American exceptionalism, he refused to believe that the country was exempt from the sober lessons of history.”

Hamilton did not believe that human beings could achieve perfection. Their appetites and capriciousness would always ensure that they remained fallible. He disliked the uplifting themes that would come to characterize much of American politics, and remained determined throughout his life that he would view humanity with suspicion, based on his knowledge of history.

“Both Hamilton and Jefferson believed in democracy, but Hamilton tended to be more suspicious of the governed and Jefferson of the governors.” 

Hamilton had a greater tolerance for executive power than Jefferson did. Jefferson believed that the most likely road to ruin lay in the hands of a governing body with too much power, and who then abused that power. Hamilton believed in devising a strong system that could protect itself against people, who would inevitably make errors and pursue avenues that ran counter to the aims of the country as a whole. 

“General, all things are moral to great souls!”

Burr’s philosophy of morality was the opposite of Hamilton’s. Burr believed that morality is relative and subject to the whims of those who win wars, political races, and who dictate public policy. People in power were able to influence the perception of what is moral, which is one reason why Burr wasn’t to be in positions of authority. His comment is a more sinister take on Madison’s belief that the ends justify the means.  

“A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight.”

Before his duel with Burr, Hamilton writes to his son, James, about the values of discretion. His remarks are similar to those expressed by Washington when referring to the value of a reserved personality. It is more difficult to make mistakes when one says less. Each time a person speaks, the potential for errors arises. For a politician and public figure, this can have greater consequences than for those in private life, but Hamilton applies the theory to all people. 

“Because of Hamilton’s youth, his large bereaved family, his extended service to his country, and his woeful end, he achieved in death what had so often eluded him in life: an emotional outpouring of sympathy from all strata of New York society.”

Despite the antipathy Hamilton and some of his foes felt for each other, no one ever sought his death. Even his detractors spoke of his achievements after the duel. Hamilton was irreplaceable, unique, a formidable foe and a loyal ally, and everyone knew it. Unfortunately, he never enjoyed such universal acclaim during his life.