Special Providence by Walter Russell Mead

Author:Walter Russell Mead [Mead, Walter Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-307-82204-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

The Jeffersonian Party

When Alexander Hamilton unveiled his proposals for national credit, a strong central government, and a pro-British, commercially oriented foreign policy in the cabinet of George Washington, he soon found himself opposed by Thomas Jefferson, then serving as the first secretary of state. The two had crossed swords before. In the debates over the Constitution, Hamilton had called for a government as strong and as centralized as possible, and for ultimate authority to rest in a powerful executive little different from a king. Hamilton’s more extreme proposals were defeated, but Jefferson was so disturbed by the powers delegated to the central government that he had difficulty in supporting the ratification of the new Constitution, and played a part in the development of the Bill of Rights to limit federal authority.

The disagreements between the two leaders have reverberated through American history to this day. For more than two hundred years, the American two-party system has borne the marks of the original quarrels in Washington’s cabinet. Parties rise and fall, ideologies come and go, but American politicians continue to wrestle with the issues—the proper relationship of capitalism and democracy, the limits of federal power with respect to the states, the people, and the economy—that divided Jefferson and Hamilton in the eighteenth century.

Both Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians agree that the United States is and ought to be a democratic and capitalist republic. But they differ on which of these two elements is the more important. Hamiltonians argue, justly enough, that without the prosperity that results from a healthy capitalist economy, the United States itself, much less its democratic system of government, cannot endure. In any case, Hamiltonians wonder, what would be the use of a government that was unable to provide appropriate conditions for the protection and development of private property?

But Jeffersonians make the obvious and compelling retort that capitalism and business cannot flourish unless society itself is healthy and democratic. And furthermore Jeffersonians have darkly and repeatedly warned that the unchecked operation of capitalism does not always reinforce democracy. The development of great fortunes and private concentration of wealth perverts and suborns the political process. Democracy cannot be taken for granted; it must be vigilantly defended.

Sometimes, Hamiltonians argue, it must be defended against itself. Democracy works best, they say, when the people elect thoughtful, experienced legislators and magistrates who make policy and write laws better than the uninstructed public could do on its own. Property is a minority interest. The demagogues who flatter public opinion, and the unscrupulous politicians who will say or do anything to gain office, may please the people, but they will undermine the security of property and therefore ultimately the stability of the government and the happiness of society. For Jeffersonians big business is a necessary evil to be tolerated for the sake of democracy; for Hamiltonians democracy in some of its forms can be a necessary but dangerous evil.

The disagreement over the proper strength and role of the federal government is similar. Hamiltonians (and Wilsonians) see a strong central government as the indispensable guarantor of national freedom.

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