A History of the American People

every man-and woman. It was distinctly unAmerican, where the inherent goodness and
perfectibility of human nature was taken for granted. Hamilton despised this as hogwash.' He was infuriated by rich, well-born, secure men like Jefferson paying court to the poor, saying everyone was equal and acting upon it-or, more likely, pretending to act upon it. To Hamilton this was dangerous moonshine. He wanted an elite, an aristocracy, to keepthe turbulent and
uncontrollable masses' in subjection. But the elite had to be tough-minded, motivated by its own
self-interest. The state had to conciliate it, as in England, by a dispensation of regular honors and emoluments,’ to give it ‘a distinct, permanent share of the government,' to keepthe
imprudence of democracy on a leash.'
Believing this, Hamilton wanted a permanent senate, elected indirectly and serving for life-
rather like a House of Lords composed of life peers. He admired many other aspects of the
British Constitution, the only one, he once said, which united public strength with personal security.' He was thus labeledreactionary,' and in a sense he was. But he was also a man of the
future. He thought the state system a ridiculous relic of the past which might prevent America
becoming a great empire.' Tiny states like Rhode Island and Delaware made no sense to him. He knew, from his wartime experience as Washington's right hand, how selfishly and stupidly the states could behave even in moments of great crisis. Hamilton, like Jefferson, was a mixture of contradictions-a hater of democracy who fought for the republic; a humbly born colonial who loved aristocracy, a faithful servant of Washington who insulted thegreat booby' behind his back, a totally honest man who winked at the
peculation of his friends, a monarchist who helped to create a republic, a devoted family man
who conducted (and admitted) an amorous adventure. He told General Henry Knox, his Cabinet
colleague and Secretary of War, My heart has always been the master of my judgment.' This was true in a sense: Hamilton was impulsive-why else would a man who hated dueling finally get himself killed in a duel? But his heart and Jefferson's were different. Hamilton's heart beat warmly in opposition to his deeply cynical view of mankind; Jefferson's was wholly in tune with his rosy, almost dewy-eyed idealization of human nature. Hamilton had been calleda Rousseau
of the right.' Jefferson admitted that Hamilton was a host in himself,' that he wasof acute
understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society
and duly prizing virtue in private life.' But he was, said Jefferson, so bewitched and perverted by the British example as to be under the conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation.' The truth is, Hamilton was a genius-the only one of the Founding Fathers fully entitled to that accolade-and he had the elusive, indefinable characteristics of genius. He did not fit any category. Woodrow Wilson was later to define him, with some justice, asA very great
man, but not a great American.' But, if unAmerican, he went a long way towards creating,
perhaps one should say adumbrating, one of the central fixtures of American public life-the
broad conjunction of opinion which was to become the Republican Party.
Equally, Jefferson's growing opposition to the whole trend Hamilton's financial and economic
policy and his constitutional centralism, gave birth to what was to become in time the
Democratic Party, although in its first incarnation it was known, confusingly to us, as the
Republican Party. The early 1790s were, in a sense, the end of American innocence, the
undermining of the confident if unrealistic belief that the government of a vast, prosperous
country could be conducted without corruption. Hamilton never had any illusions on that score-
to him, man was always a fallen creature; he was a true conservative in that sense. But to the
Jeffersonians it came as a shock. It should be said that Jefferson, true to his divided nature, was a
man of pacts and compromises and deals. It was he who brokered the deal on funding the debt