Next Daily Excerpt:
Next book in my American history section is Alexander Hamilton: A Life
So skip his book on Jefferson – but read his one on Hamilton. He doesn’t have the same weird need to PROTECT Hamilton like he did with Jefferson – and the book is better for it.
One of the great things about Randall’s writing (I’ve noticed it in all three of his books) is his reliance on primary documents – He quotes extensively from letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, speeches – His books are filled with block quotes – and I am ALL ABOUT the block quotes.
Now – nobody wrote more than Alexander Hamilton. I mean, from a very early age the boy was a wunderkind. I’ll be studying Alexander Hamilton until I shuffle off this mortal coil. He, to me, is the dark horse of that group. Completely independent, out of nowhere, brilliant to the point of being intimidating (to his contemporaries and to me), prophetic, fearless, hated, complex … I LOVE reading about this guy. He excites me.
During the Constitutional Congress in 1787 – he stood up at one point and talked for SIX HOURS STRAIGHT. Oh man, what I would not give to have been there that day. He had notes (as a matter of fact, I SAW those notes when I went to the Hamilton exhibit at the New York Historical Society – little scratchings on a page) – but he didn’t look down at them. He knew what he had to say. And he said it – for six hours. It was a breathtaking accomplishment – even in that room filled with men who are still known for their own breathtaking accomplishments.
So here’s an excerpt describing his six-hour marathon. And thank goodness that James Madison took extensive notes of the entire proceedings – recording every word everyone said, like an autistic lunatic. Thanks, Jimmy!
One of my favorite Hamiltonian quotes is below. It didn’t come from his six-hour speech but a couple days later – during the arguments following his plan – It’s the last blockquote in the excerpt. Words to live by, man, words to live by.
From <Alexander Hamilton: A Life
Two days into an intense three-day debate on the New Jersey Plan, Hamilton asked President Washington if he could have the floor. It was early in the session of June 18 when the tall, thin, angular-faced New Yorker in elegant black and white stood and began a six-hour speech. Carefully prepared notes lay beside him, but he did not have to consult them. Madison, deeply impressed, recorded the scene:
Mr. Hamilton [said that he] had been hitherto silent on the business before the Convention, partly from respect to others whose superior abilities, age, and experience rendered him unwilling to bring forward ideas dissimilar to theirs and partly from his delicate situation with respect to his own state.
Madison was wrong about Hamilton’s silence. He had already made two key motions. But, as it would later turn out, Madison was dead right about Hamilton’s delicate situation in the New York delegation, where he was sure to be outvoted – and in bloc voting that meant nullified – by the pro-Clinton delegates. But that also meant he had nothing to lose. While Hamilton declared that he could not possibly accede to the views of his fellow New Yorkers, he said that the crisis “which now marked our affairs was too serious to permit any scruples whatever to prevail over the duty imposed on every man to contribute his efforts for the public safety and happiness.”
Hamilton felt he was “obliged therefore to declare himself unfriendly” to both the Virginia and the New Jersey plans. He was “particularly opposed” to Paterson’s small-state plan. No amendment of the Confederation that left the states sovereign “could possibly answer.” Yet he was “much discouraged” by the “amazing” number of delegates who expected the “desired blessings” by merely substituting a federal national government for a loose-knit confederation of sovereign states. He agreed with Randolph of Virginia that “we owe it to our country to do in this emergency whatever we should deem essential to its happiness.” To do anything less, jsut because it was “not clearly within our pwoers, would be to sacrifice the means to the end.”
To Hamilton, all the defects lay with the states. Massachusetts was feeling the lack of a “certain portion of military force that is absolutely necessary”:
All the passions we see, of avarice, ambition, interest, which govern most individuals and all public bodies, fall into the current of the states and do not flow into the stream of the general [national] government … How then are all these evils to be avoided? Only by such a complete sovereignty in the general government as will turn all the strong principles and passions [to] its side.
Hamilton argued that Paterson’s plan provided no remedy. Small states like New Jersey and North Carolina, “not being commercial states and [only] contributing to the wealth of the commercial ones,” could never meet proportional tax quotas as Randolph of Virginia had proposed. “They will and must fail in their duty, their example will be followed, and the Union itself will be dissolved.” What, then, was to be done? The expense of a national government over so great an extent of land would be “formidable” unless the cost of state government diminished. He did not mean to shock public opinion but he favored “extinguishing” the state governments: “they are not necessary for any of the great purposes of commerce, revenue or agriculture.” What would work better would be “district tribunals: corporations for local purposes.” The “only difficulty of a serious nature” which he foresaw was in drawing public officials from the edges to the center of the national community. “Moderate wages” would only “be a bait to little demagogues.” Hamilton’s views “almost led him to despair,” Madison noted, “that a republican government could be established over so great an extent.” In his private opinion, Madison wrote of Hamilton, “he had no scruple in declaring, supported as he was by so many of the wise and good, that the British government was the best in the world.” He dared to say this because, he said, he had seen a profound shift in public opinion as the members of Congress who were the most tenacious republicans were as loud as anyone in declaiming against “the vices of democracy.” He agreed with Necker, the French finance minister, who viewed the British Parliament as “the only government in the world ‘which unites public strength with individual security.'”
Many in his audience reeling at such heresy in a Revolutionary council, Hamilton raced on:
In every community where industry is encouraged, there will be a division of it into the few and the many. Hence, separate interests will arise. There will be debtors and creditors. Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have power, that each may defend itself against the other.
Hamilton submitted “a sketch of his plan” to the Committee of the Whole, warning that “the people” outside the convention’s walls would not adopt either the Virginia or the New Jersey plans. Hamilton said he saw the Union dissolving. “He seees evils in the states which must soon cure the people of their fondness for democracies,” reported Madison.
Hamilton then read aloud his own plan of government. He proposed a two-house Supreme Legislative Power “in two distinct bodies of men”: an elected assembly, elected by free men, serving three-year terms, and a lifetime senate, like the English House of Lords but not hereditary, serving “during good behavior.” The senators would be chosen by electors chosen by the people, would form “a permanent barrier against every pernicious innovation.” Judges also would be elected by the people and serve during good behavior. The supreme executive would be a governor chosen in the same fashion, for life, but only during good behavior: could there be “a good government without a good executive”? This “governor” — Hamilton did not use the word “president” — would be able to veto “all laws about to be passed” and would be in charge of executing the laws. He would be “the commander in chief of the land and naval forces and of the militia.” He would have “with the advice and approbation of the Senate” the power of making all treaties. He would appoint the heads of the departments of finance, war, and foreign affairs. He would nominate all ambassadors subject to Senate approval, and he would “have the power of pardoning all offenses but treason,” which would require the assent of Congress.
In one brilliant, six-hour, standup oration that left the convention stunned, Alexander Hamilton, with only the exception of term limits and the rules and qualifications of voters, laid out what would become the basic framework of the United States government. Off and on for the next few days, he rose to defend portions of his plan. Hamilton’s plan coincided with the Virginia Plan on the major premise that there should be three branches of a national government, legislative, executive, and judiciary. On June 19, when the revised Virginia Plan came out of committee, he rose to elaborate on where his plan differed. His suggestion that the states should be abolished had drawn sharp criticism overnight. By “abolish”, he meant their authority must be lessened. It should be “indefinite,” but they should be left as “subordinate jurisdictions,” as Persia within the Roman Empire. That same day, he rose again to contest a part of the Virginia Plan written by Luther Martin of Maryland that said the thirteen states were “in a state of nature,” the old argument of philosopher John Locke. But Hamilton found James Wilson of Pennsylvania’s resolution more palatable: the states had won their independence from Great Britain not individually but collectively. He did not fear combinations of states. The large states, Virginia and Massachusetts, were separated by too great distance.
Once again, on June 21, he rose to challenge Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, who wanted Congress to be elected by the state legislation. Without direct election by the people, Congress would be “engrafted” to state governments that could dwindle and die. The same day, he remained adamant on the term of representatives to the lower house. Three years in office was better than a shorter term because too frequent elections made the “people listless to them.” He argued against letting state governments pay national salaries: “Those who pay are masters of those who are paid.” And he argued vigorously against the holding of more than one public office:
Take mankind in general, they are vicious – their passions may be operated upon. Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions. There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives [but] one great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest. Wise government should avail itself of those passions, to make them subservient to the public good.
And then, sure that no one at the convention would follow his advice, he went home.
