Alexander Hamilton

0143034758

Ron Chernow

Notes

…useful lesson that people who manipulate the law wield the real power in society. 

Hamilton exuded an air of crisp efficiency and cool self-command. While his peers squandered their time on frivolities, Hamilton led a much more strenuous, urgent life that liberated him from St. Croix. He was a proud and sensitive boy, caught in the lower reaches of a rigid class society with small chances for social mobility…Hamilton would display a deep insecurity that he normally kept well hidden behind his confident demeanor. If struck, he tended to hit back hard. 

It was temperamentally hard for Alexander Hamilton to subordinate himself to anyone, even someone with the extraordinary stature of George Washington…Having hitched his star to Washington, Hamilton struck a bargain with himself that he honored for the remainder of his career: he would never openly criticize Washington, whose image had to be upheld to unify the country…He had been snubbed over too many appointments and meditated an open break. He resolved that “if there should ever happen [to be] a breach between us,” he was determined “never to consent to an accommodation.”  

This early lesson in Realpolitik – that countries follow their interests, not their sympathies – was engraved in Hamilton’s memory, and he often reminded Jeffersonians later on that the French had fought for their own selfish purposes…Within the Neutrality Proclamation, Hamilton continued to define his views on American foreign policy: that it should be based on self-interest, not emotional attachment; that the supposed altruism of nations often masked baser motives; that individuals sometimes acted benevolently, but nations seldom did. 

Increasingly Hamilton despaired of pure democracy, of politics simply catering to the popular will, and favored educated leaders who would enlighten the people and exercise their own judgment…This was the great paradox of his career: his optimistic view of human nature. His faith in Americans never quite matched his faith in America itself…The 1800 elections revealed, for the first time, the powerful centrist pull of American politics – the electorate’s tendency to rein in anything perceived as extreme. The stress placed upon the Adams-Hamilton feud pointed up a deeper problem in the Federalist party, one they may explain its ultimate failure to survive: the elitist nature of its politics. James McHenry complained to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., of their adherents, “They write private letters to each other, but do nothing to give a proper direction to the public mind.” The Federalists issued appeals to the electorate but did not try to mobilize a broad-based popular movement. Hamilton wanted to lead the electorate and provide expert opinion instead of consulting popular opinion. He took tough, uncompromising stands and gloried in abstruse ideas in a political culture that pined for greater simplicity. Alexander Hamillton triumphed as a doer and thinker, not as a leader of the average voter. He was simply too unashamedly brainy to appeal to the masses. Fishe Admas observed of Hamilton that the common people don’t want leaders “whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads.” 

There is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him. He must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on. 

“…it is the situation in which I can do most good.”

Hamilton knew the symbolic value of rapid decision making and phenomenal energy. As he wrote during the Revolution, “if a Government appears to be confident of its own powers, it is the surest way to inspire the same confidence in others.” With support for the Constitution still tentative in some states, Hamilton knew that designing enemies lay in wait to destroy it. To succeed, the government had to establish its authority, and to this end he was prepared to move with exceptional speed. Alexander Hamilton never seemed to wander around in a normal human muddle. With preternatural confidence, he discerned clear solutions to the murkiest questions. 

“Whoever considers that nature of our government with discernment will see that though obstacles and delays will frequently stand in the way of the adoption of good measures, yet when once adopted, they are likely to be stable and permanent.  It will be far more difficult to undo than to do. 

Mirabeau, the French revolutionary politician, once observed of Talleyrand that he “would sell his soul for money and he would be right, fo he would be exchanging dung for gold.” Napoleon expressed this sentiment more concisely, calling Talleyrand “a pile of shit in a silk stocking.”