Alexander Hamilton: Still Winning

It is not that hard to see the first few decades of American politics as a big battle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. They were the leading thinkers of the two earliest political parties, Hamilton's Federalists and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. They had many opposing views about government, politics, and the new American Constitution. Their feuding, as Secretaries of State and the Treasury in the Washington cabinet, was what created the two factions that went on to become the First Party System. And it's easy to think that Jefferson won. After all, when you think of Thomas Jefferson you think of the hero of democratic ideals who won the Revolution of 1800 and who is on Mount Rushmore. When you think of Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, you probably think mainly of the quasi-monarchist who was obsessed with economics and died in a stupid duel with Jefferson's Vice-President in 1801. And after Jefferson defeated Hamilton's Federalists in the 1800 election, the Federalists never won the Presidency back, instead petering out about two decades later and giving the D-R's a period of one-party rule. But here's the thing: not only was Hamilton right about just about everything that he and Jefferson disagreed about, but he also won. Overwhelmingly.

Because what matters, ultimately, is not the letters they put after the name of the guy in the White House. It's the trajectory of American public policy. And almost all of the policies Hamilton supported and Jefferson opposed ultimately became mainstream. Hell, the reason the Federalists died out was largely that the Republicans had decided to steal all of their good ideas (the American system of tariffs/internal improvements/national bank being a primary example). But the specific reason that I'm writing this post today is that I'm reading Hamilton's Federalist No. 78, his defense of judicial review. Because the thing is, people like judicial review. They accept it as natural and proper. How else could the branch of the government that commands neither purse nor sword, and depends on the executive for enforcements of the only power it does wield, its judgment, manage to become so powerful? The Supreme Court is powerful because every time it tries to make itself more powerful the people approve, and every time someone else tries to make it less powerful the people disapprove. The Court is way more powerful than Jefferson would have been okay with; indeed, it probably was so in his own time. That's because Hamilton was right about everything, and the American people, over time, have realized that. Even if they haven't realized that they've realized it.