Jefferson vs. Hamilton or Group Hug?

Jefferson vs. Hamilton or Group Hug?
by Mitch Frank

Some of the most wondrous things in the world are where you least expect them. Take the Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall Street.

I was walking last Saturday, up Broadway, from the southern end of Manhattan. Down there in the financial district where I rarely tread, the buildings are all tall enough to challenge the nearby World Trade Center for the title of closest to the heavens. You walk up Broadway and feel like you’re in a canyon – albeit one made of glass and steel and stone.

And then you come upon the church. Trinity Church was built in New York’s earliest days. It burned to rubble during the British occupation in 1776, and was soon rebuilt in stone. It is one of few buildings left from colonial times in a section of town that only values progress, but it is all the more beautiful because of its stark contrast to the towers around it.

I walked into the small graveyard next to the church and looked among the graves for its most famous resident. Then I saw a tomb with a tall obelisk atop it. In any other cemetery, it would have been rather small. In a New Orleans cemetery it would have been a joke. But here amongst small, weathered tombstones over 200 years old, it was the largest and grandest. And it belonged to Alexander Hamilton.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. I went to school at one man’s university, down in Virginia. And now I live in the other’s city, here among the steel canyons. And when I think of politics and of America, I think of these two men. For Jefferson and Hamilton, who passionately hated each other, have served as virtual fathers for this nation.

Now I know what you’re saying – When exactly did this column turn into a history lecture? Well, bear with me. Because all ideas uniquely American came from these two men.

Jefferson was the first secretary of state of the new United States, serving in George Washington’s first cabinet. Hamilton was Washington’s secretary of the treasury. Jefferson had written that all men are created equal. Hamilton had created the constitution - the foundation for a strong federal government. Within the next four years the men would lay the groundwork for the America’s first two-party system.

In hindsight, many of Hamilton’s ideas seem prescient. He foresaw that America would grow into an industrial nation. He focused the new government on encouraging manufacturing and business. Jefferson believed the nation’s future lay in a rural, agrarian society. Granted, much of America is farmland still, but Jefferson’s vision of a simple rural society has long been replaced – first by an industrial nation of factories and now by a new information based economy. Hamilton believed innovation and letting capitalism evolve where it will was the key to America’s strength.

And Hamilton also foresaw the need for a strong federal government. I know judging by the e-mails I receive that many of my readers feel the government should be pared down or eliminated. Ironically enough, Hamilton, who respected the market above all else, believed that a strong federal government existed to protect that market, by allowing America the stability to focus on business. Never to interfere in business, but to safeguard it and give it new opportunities.

But Hamilton did not see the responsibility of government that Jefferson saw. Jefferson felt the government was merely the tool of the people. Hamilton did not trust the people. He believed in a limited democracy and felt that decisions were best left to the federal government. After all, he created the electoral college – not believing ultimate responsibility for picking the president should fall to the masses. And few remember nowadays that senators were not directly elected in this country for some time.

Jefferson did believe in the people. He subscribed to the philosophy that the government exists because the people wish it to. Jefferson was educated and wealthy. He could have created a new aristocracy in America. Hamilton believed in a new meritocracy. An illegitimate child in a time of nobility, Hamilton felt those who were smartest and most successful should decide the people’s fate. But as Jefferson saw it, the people may not always make the smartest decisions, but neither do so-called educated men. At least in a true democracy the decisions – foolish or wise – belonged to the masses.

Now this may seem like an archaic history lesson. But think of the ideas that still rule American politics today. Should we have a strong government? Should government help business, restrict business, or just stay out of the marketplace? Should government attempt to help the people? Should we have a weak government?

I think both men were right and both men were wrong. I think America is a land of cities and farms. And a government can accomplish great things - it can create massive public works that better our lives, it can educate, feed, and give a hand up to those who capitalism has left behind. But that government can only do so if it is ultimately responsible to the people.

Our American government is a tool that, if in the hands of the American people, can be the people’s mightiest defender of rights and opportunity. Is it in their hands? Sort of. Special interest money seems to have quite a few votes, too. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw out that government.

One thing is certain, however. The ideas those two men debated are as fresh today as they were then. America is a unique experiment in that it was founded based on ideas – not nationalities or history. So, as long as we’re still arguing over these two men’s ideas, I think the American experiment is working just fine.

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