{"id":502,"date":"2004-02-19T14:32:39","date_gmt":"2004-02-19T19:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=502"},"modified":"2015-05-13T18:17:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T22:17:02","slug":"our-prevailing-passions-are-ambition-and-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0143034758&#038;asins=0143034758&#038;linkId=3VF52JLFLL3NEATL&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nI am tearing through the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow at breakneck speed.<\/p>\n<p>At this point in the book, Hamilton has teamed up with Jay and Madison, after the Constitutional wrangling in Philadelphia, a divisive and vicious process &#8211; and the three of them have decided to publish a series of newspaper articles, which, of course, will later be known as &#8220;The Federalist Papers&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>As Hamilton went about to study to become a lawyer in New York, he realized that all of the laws were not written down, there was no handbook, no law book to pass out, in regards to New York State law.  And so, of course, Hamilton wrote the book.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s that kind of single-minded focus, and determination that all of these guys had in common &#8211; even though each one of them had a different take on the &#8220;how should we move forward&#8221; question.<\/p>\n<p><i>Oh &#8211; so this book doesn&#8217;t exist.  But this book NEEDS to exist.  So, clearly, I must write it.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>It was Hamilton who said, during his 6 hour long speech at the end of the Constitutional Convention, &#8220;Decision is true wisdom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s that very view that can make him rather terrifying, at times.<\/p>\n<p>But still.  I could not be more facinated by him.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Take mankind in general, they are vicious &#8211; 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0143034758&#038;asins=0143034758&#038;linkId=3VF52JLFLL3NEATL&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am tearing through the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow at breakneck speed. At this point in the book, Hamilton has teamed up with Jay and Madison, after the Constitutional wrangling in Philadelphia, a divisive and vicious process &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=502\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[33,1567,174,635],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101207,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/101207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}