What Would Alexander Hamilton Do? Minimize Political Dissent

 

protesters demonstratingSome 200+ years later, founding father Alexander Hamilton is a hot ticket.

 

An eponymous Broadway musical and a PBS series celebrate and illuminate Alexander Hamilton’s life and legacy.

 

Hamilton’s views are still being debated today, so I’ve decided to look at five of his core convictions in light of today’s issues. He’s a seminal American political philosopher and co-author of the Federalist Papers, which are consulted when constitutional questions are raised.

 

Today I ask, what would Hamilton say about the painful conflicts playing out today between the government and people with grievances against it?

How much power should the government use against its own citizens?

 

Terrorism and police brutality are two pressing and painful issues that I’ll use as examples.

 

How do we protect our country against terrorism without throwing away what makes our society worth protecting in the first place? If we torture our enemies and repress entire communities, how can we claim to be an enlightened society that’s founded on universal human rights?

 

This enduring dilemma pits two important goals against each other: The safety and security of our people against the rights of our all citizens to live without fear of excessive government power being used against them.

 

Thomas Jefferson viewed liberty as the most important right, even if disruptive or dangerous. He feared the tyranny of government control. Alexander Hamilton saw social order as more important than liberty.

 

At the time of America’s founding, Hamilton was a young man with little memory of British tyranny. In establishing our system, Hamilton sought to create a powerful nation-state on the world stage. Conversely, Jefferson said we can’t make the same mistakes. We just overthrew a powerful centralized government in which the will of the people wasn’t represented.

Founders weren’t so united

 

It’s tempting to see the Founding Fathers as a harmonious family which, having accomplished its goals, lived happily ever after in the new United States. But bringing down a system is easier than building one.

 

Hamilton valued order and government stability. Were he alive today, he would likely view Edward Snowden as a traitor for exposing government secrets. Jefferson would perceive a patriotic whistle blower who exposed America’s potentially illegal surveillance activities.

 

Many fear government invasion of privacy. Hamilton would probably think it’s justified in times of uncertainty. He feared that dissent was fertile soil for treason.

 

Here’s why: When the new Constitution was not well established in the 1790s, France was undergoing a bloody revolution that overthrew a centuries-old monarchy. The guillotine left the King and Queen, not to mention the country, headless. The European monarchies next door looked over in horror and anticipated their own futures.

 

France’s radical government wanted to export its revolution abroad. Hamilton feared this type of anarchy and mob rule coming to America. America was not a monarchy, true, but had a privileged ruling class with land and wealth. Not unlike today.

Hamilton lived in terror of anarchy destroying the fragile new government

 

Hamilton saw fledgling American government as fragile. He supported the Alien and Sedition Act, which was born of suspicion of immigrants and their motives. Sound familiar? Newspaper editors who expressed support for France’s revolution were jailed.

 

A sniper annihilated five police officers in Dallas this July. The group Black Lives Matter is blamed for stirring up anger toward the police, yet the group’s right to peacefully protest is protected by the Constitution.

 

A present-day Hamilton would argue that the risk of unstable, violent individuals taking justice into their own hands is intolerable. Five innocent officers are dead, five families grieving. These deaths, possibly triggered by the attention brought to injustice by the movement, are counterproductive.

 

Five more deaths do not bring back the lives of those victims tragically killed by bad cops. They don’t make the police in general feel more sympathy for black victims. If anything, they make good police feel more defensive. Respect for police authority should not be destroyed because of a few bad apples, Hamilton would say. Police authority is crucial for a functioning society. Hamilton would insist that aggrieved citizens work within the system to reform it. Of course, victims feel strongly that they have waited long enough.

 

Each side has valid claims.

 

As you can see, Alexander Hamilton’s views still matter.  How much power should the government have to maintain order? This question remains as pressing as ever.

 

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