More on Hamilton’s war on Congress. This is from yet another letter he fired off to Governor Clinton – who was a strong anti-Federalist. Funny. Hamilton took his arguments straight to the enemy. Again, he’s only 23 years old here, but he’s in the thick of the Revolutionary War, and aware that there are some huge problems with how Congress deals with things.
Whatever refined politicians may think, it is of great consequence to preserve a national character … To violate its faith whenever it is the least inconvenient to keep it [will] unquestionably have an ill-effect upon foreign negotiations and tend to bring Government at home into contempt.
I would ask whether, in a republican state and a republican army, such a cruel policy as that of exposing those men who [were] foremost in defense of their country to the miseries of hopeless captivity can succeed? For my own part, I have so much of the milk of humanity in me that I abhor such Neroian maxims, and I look up on the old proverb, that honesty is the best policy, to be so generally true that I can never expect any good from any systemative deviation from it.
