Jefferson and Hamilton to-Day: The Dichotomy in American Thought
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. For quite other purposes than this article, I have recently had to examine with care practically every word which has been printed of the writings of both statesmen, and 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 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 thought and act.
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 Hamilton-Jefferson contradictory 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 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 not 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 manufactures, 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 impractical 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 thenvery 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 clearcut 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. 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, I have still to hear any very straight and manly declarations on that point from the Democratic candidates as yet in the running. 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 feared 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 as capable of selfgovernment. 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. It did so 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, — safe in their old age, — are being more and more crowded out as to any possibility of becoming more than wage earners. 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 today. 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 coldblooded, 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 carelessly as we have tried to do.
Hamilton and Jefferson. Honest men both, and bitterest of foes in a fight which they knew was 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, had political power been transferred to the people at large? Jefferson would say, why preach 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.