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Thread: A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

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    A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

    We speak now and then of the centralization of power in the US. It started with the founding.

    A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

    During the 1780s, in both war and peace, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison shared a number of political principles. They had a similar view of human nature, supported republican self-government, and wanted the national government to assume greater powers because of what they perceived to be the flaws under the Articles of Confederation. Their collaboration culminated in the creation of the Federalist as the definitive defense of the Constitution during the ratification debate. It seemed as if their fruitful partnership would endure in the new republic.

    The 1790s saw the rapid fracturing of this key relationship of the American founding. The fierce debate engendered by Hamilton’s financial plans including the federal assumption of state debts, the national bank, and government sponsorship of manufactures and internal improvements split the relationship. Madison increasingly allied himself with Thomas Jefferson, and they feared that the centralizing tendencies in Hamilton’s policies were creating a monarchical and aristocratic system that threatened republican self-government. For his part, Hamilton was shocked and disturbed by Madison’s apparent betrayal and thought that the myopic opposition would hinder and destroy the national Union and new republic.

    Their division revealed important differences of political philosophy, argues Jay Cost in his thought-provoking new book, The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy. The author points out that the main difference between the two statesmen was based upon Hamiltonian advocacy of economic nationalism binding the wealthy to the national government and Union, whereas the Madisonian project focused on republicanism guided by ensuring justice for all groups....
    Jefferson and Madison tried to turn this around but...

    Curiously, the story continues about halfway through the book without one of its protagonists (because Hamilton perished in the duel with Aaron Burr) and delves into the Republican presidencies of Jefferson and Madison which swept in a Jeffersonian wave of spending cuts and smaller government—including the expiration of the national bank in 1811—into national policy. As Cost notes, the Republican policies were disastrous for the country, leaving it woefully unprepared to fight the War of 1812. After the war, President Madison had a change of heart and embraced a Second National Bank, mildly protective tariffs, and internal improvements, albeit with a constitutional amendment for the latter.

    Cost argues that Madison had become a Hamiltonian while president: “Madison not only adopted old Hamiltonian policies but also accepted his approach to governance. Hamilton’s program was built on the idea that the government could use select factions in society as mediators of the general welfare.”...
    Price of Greatness extends through the Civil War and the beginning of the Progressive Era.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Curiously, the story continues about halfway through the book without one of its protagonists (because Hamilton perished in the duel with Aaron Burr) and delves into the Republican presidencies of Jefferson and Madison which swept in a Jeffersonian wave of spending cuts and smaller government—including the expiration of the national bank in 1811—into national policy. As Cost notes, the Republican policies were disastrous for the country, leaving it woefully unprepared to fight the War of 1812.

    A curious argument since Jefferson did nothing to reduce the size of the US Navy during his presidency. Most of his cuts came from reducing the size of the government's domestic bureaucracy. Jefferson also signed into law an embargo on English goods, which is even more extreme than the tariffs proposed by federalists like Hamilton. Given this, I fail to see the connection the author is trying to make.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    Curiously, the story continues about halfway through the book without one of its protagonists (because Hamilton perished in the duel with Aaron Burr) and delves into the Republican presidencies of Jefferson and Madison which swept in a Jeffersonian wave of spending cuts and smaller government—including the expiration of the national bank in 1811—into national policy. As Cost notes, the Republican policies were disastrous for the country, leaving it woefully unprepared to fight the War of 1812.

    A curious argument since Jefferson did nothing to reduce the size of the US Navy during his presidency. Most of his cuts came from reducing the size of the government's domestic bureaucracy. Jefferson also signed into law an embargo on English goods, which is even more extreme than the tariffs proposed by federalists like Hamilton. Given this, I fail to see the connection the author is trying to make.

    I think you answered yourself: "Most of his cuts came from reducing the size of the government's domestic bureaucracy." The book is focused on domestic policy not foreign.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    I think you answered yourself: "Most of his cuts came from reducing the size of the government's domestic bureaucracy." The book is focused on domestic policy not foreign.
    So how did those cuts leave the country "woefully unprepared" to fight the War of 1812, as the author claims?
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    So how did those cuts leave the country "woefully unprepared" to fight the War of 1812, as the author claims?
    You'd have to ask Cost, the author of the book reviewed.

    I would imagine he would say war requires a strong centralized government, banks to finance it, and so on.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    Curiously, the story continues about halfway through the book without one of its protagonists (because Hamilton perished in the duel with Aaron Burr) and delves into the Republican presidencies of Jefferson and Madison which swept in a Jeffersonian wave of spending cuts and smaller government—including the expiration of the national bank in 1811—into national policy. As Cost notes, the Republican policies were disastrous for the country, leaving it woefully unprepared to fight the War of 1812.

    A curious argument since Jefferson did nothing to reduce the size of the US Navy during his presidency. Most of his cuts came from reducing the size of the government's domestic bureaucracy. Jefferson also signed into law an embargo on English goods, which is even more extreme than the tariffs proposed by federalists like Hamilton. Given this, I fail to see the connection the author is trying to make.
    "The Republican ideal was carried to such extremes at the start of the 19th century that even the bare essentials for ensuring the collective good -- the requirements of national security, for instance -- were starved of support or left to the states. The concept of sustaining a robust regular army and navy represented to the Republicans of the time what the welfare state is to conservatives now: a budget-busting beast, insatiably devouring higher tax revenues, and potentially imperiling individual liberties. Armies and navies, intoned Senator John Taylor of Virginia, only "squander money, and extend corruption." A national military establishment, therefore, was to be all but dispensed with.


    A consequence of such orthodoxies was that, even by the standards of a fledgling country, the United States perforce forfeited leverage in international relations. Simply put, along with light taxation, the Republicans "placed debt reduction above national defense," states the historian Ralph Ketcham in his leading biography of James Madison. Absent a credible military force, Republican policy repaired more or less exclusively to trade sanctions -- which, not unlike those currently deployed against North Korea or Iran, scarcely seemed to alter the behavior of the targeted miscreants. Fundamentally flawed, the Republican approach handed the Federalists a forceful political issue, enabling them to double their congressional representation and triple their presidential electoral votes in the election of 1808.


    With so little to show for their weapons of choice (various attempts at economic coercion) in dealing with foreign mischief and after having spent nearly a decade fuming about that of Britain in particular, politically the Republicans -- not least, even the sober President Madison -- could not easily have backed down in the ensuing four years. The stakes that the party had played so big a part in raising were now too high.
    Hence, following the mid-term balloting of 1810, the Republican president along with a restive newly-elected group of hardliners in Congress grew persuaded that a different, additional sort of force had to be brought to bear. Otherwise, many reckoned, not only would America be humiliated, so would the Republican Party. Indeed, the two amounted to one and the same from the Republican point of view, for Republicans claimed to be the sole legitimate voice of the people: "the Republicans are the nation," Jefferson had proclaimed. On the line, in short, was the party's brand. Further discredit to it loomed as a danger worse than the fog of war.


    At this point, an attentive reader may wonder: But how could these partisans have fastened on a muscular posture without building up the necessary muscle? Was it not the greatest political risk of all to contemplate war without first accepting the investment and preparation required to succeed? Ideologically hidebound in their customary reluctance over the years to countenance more than a skeletal military, and to impose the internal taxes necessary to pay for a more respectable force, the Republicans, with a few exceptions, appeared hopelessly inconsistent to the Federalists. But what looked contradictory -- indeed, singularly careless -- to Federalists was not so illogical to most Republicans.

    In Republican eyes, the idea of a national mobilization to mount and maintain a European-style standing army or navy would come at too great a price. It implied centralizing power and forsaking the dearest of republican virtues, and such profoundly insidious means could not be justified to pursue even keenly desired ends. In any case, they were considered unnecessary. In Jefferson's view, the republic's loose union and limited ruling institutions had actually created the "strongest Government on earth" -- a government that common men in state militias would spontaneously rush to defend precisely because it demanded so little of them."
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...debate/265488/
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