The Hamilton Project: The Epic Story of Money and Power in America’s Founding, by William Hogeland, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 544 pages $35
Over the past two decades, Alexander Hamilton has become a folk hero. In 2004, Ron Chernow’s monumental biography of Hamilton became a bestseller. Ten years later, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a huge success Hamilton: An American Musical Despite – or more likely because of – its inaccuracies and simplifications, it further enhanced the popularity of America’s first Treasury secretary. And this year, New York Times and Bloomberg Published stories titled “There’s a Secret Hamiltonian in the White House” and “Industrial Policy and Alexander Hamilton,” celebrating President Joe Biden’s economic initiatives.
Hamilton’s love of industrial policy was one of the reasons why libertarian economist Murray Rothbard dubbed him the Mephistopheles of early American history. William Hoagland’s new book, hamilton planessentially agreeing with Rothbard, although not for exactly the same reasons.
Although not associated with any university or think tank, Hoagland has written several respectable books on early American history. His latest work is not a complete biography of Hamilton. Instead, it focuses on his political and economic policies and proposals, interspersed with mini-biographies of several of his supporters and opponents. In addition to George Washington, these included Robert Morris, who served as secretary of the nation’s treasury before the adoption of the Constitution; William Findley, one of Hamilton’s fiercest critics in the House of Representatives; and Albert Albert Gallatin, who became Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson. Hoagland did stray from his subject, criticizing Miranda for portraying young Hamilton as a poor immigrant who had to overcome prejudices, emphasizing that Hamilton was “born in the economic heart of a great empire.” [the British Caribbean] Hooglander also dismissed Chernow’s assertion that Hamilton was an “uncompromising abolitionist.”
Hoagland was a passionate egalitarian and often hostile to market outcomes, which somewhat distorted his analysis of tax rebellions such as Shay’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. In fact, rather than seeing this period of American history as an ongoing conflict between nationalists and defenders of states’ rights, as most narratives do, he sees three distinct competing interests: continentalists, nationalists Sovereignists and “democracy.” To be sure, state sovereigntists were dominated by elite leaders, and concerns about too much democracy were the primary motivations for the Constitutional Convention. Some Participants in the various Democratic uprisings do want to balance wealth and cancel debt. The most extreme of these was Herman Husband, a well-traveled, popular but eccentric religious fanatic who was one of Hoagland’s heroes. But this does not weaken the rigorous academic spirit of this book.
Hoagland’s discussion of Hamilton’s role in the so-called Newburgh Conspiracy is original and compelling. After the victory at Yorktown, the revenue-starved Continental Congress was unable to persuade enough states to pass an amendment giving them the power to impose direct taxes in the form of import duties. As a result, Hamilton and other nationalists in Congress, including Morris, sought to leverage Continental Army officers’ grievances over lack of pay and other unfulfilled promises to pressure the states. The conspiracy involved the possible refusal of the Continental Army to disband when peace was imminent, and even the possibility of a military coup. Historians still debate the severity of the threat and how deeply nationalists were implicated. But it is clear that Hamilton exploited this danger in his efforts to get the tax amendment approved.
Ultimately, Army Commander Washington assuaged the officers’ dissatisfaction, and the amendment was never passed. But Congress did replace the officers’ promised half-pay lifetime pensions with $5 million in commutations, which significantly increased the outstanding war debt.
Hamilton was one of the chief architects of the secretive Constitutional Convention. There he revealed himself to be a secret monarchist: expressing his admiration for the British system of government, the best in the world, and declaring his preference for a lifelong president with absolute veto power over all legislation. He was appalled that senators were elected by the states. In fact, he wanted to see the states and their militias virtually eliminated. However, some increased central power was better than none, so Hamilton was willing to disguise his true views when contributing to central power. Federalist Papers. Many historians dismiss Hamilton’s convention remarks as an aberration, but Hoagland reveals that these extreme oligarchic tendencies influenced Hamilton’s efforts throughout his career.
No one denies that Hamilton displayed financial genius during his tenure as Treasury Secretary. As Hoagland said, he always “crossed every t and embellish every IAnyone who has read Hamilton’s long reports will be impressed by their tireless energy and overwhelming comprehensiveness in an era when there were not even typewriters and everything was written and calculated by hand.
But the density and complexity of the reports stymied his critics. Few in Congress want war debt to be forgiven entirely, but as debt securities decline in value and speculators eat up most of them, some lawmakers want to fund the securities at less than face value so they can be paid back quickly . Hamilton himself actually set up a partial default by complexly lowering the promised interest rate, but so that he could have the Treasury assume the states’ war debts as well. Overall, he wants to secure huge permanent debts that tie the loyalty of wealthy investors as a powerful interest group to the national government.
The story of Hamilton’s efforts to create a nationally chartered bank to further his goals is well known. Less well known is his failed effort to shape industrial policy through the creation of the Association for Useful Manufactures. It was a state-chartered and state-sponsored company that would build factories and other factories; it was closely associated with the National Bank and the Bank of New York, another of Hamilton’s creations. The plan ultimately failed, in part due to the reckless speculation of Hamilton’s close associate William Duerr.
Why did Hoaglander, sympathetic to government intervention, find this and other Hamilton plans objectionable? Because they create cartels that benefit primarily the rich and privileged at the expense of smaller rivals.
This goal is most explicit in one of the most chilling sections of Hoagland’s book: the detailed description of the Whiskey Rebellion. The tax is highly regressive and was designed by Hamilton to squeeze out small brewers in favor of larger producers, one of whom even paid to enforce it. In many reports, the rebellion was an almost unremarkable affair, a simple refusal to pay taxes that was put down with an almost bloodless force. Hoogland demonstrates that, in fact, unlike other areas where individuals ignored taxes, Pennsylvania’s resistance was initially quite violent. Tax collectors and tax supporters were beaten, tarred and feathered, or otherwise violently intimidated.
By the time Washington mobilized 12,000 militiamen, marching under Hamilton’s effective command, open resistance had subsided, largely due to the calming influence of Gallatin, Findlay, and even her husband. To buy time, the government sent commissioners to negotiate and promised amnesty to anyone who signed the Pledge of Allegiance. Most of the area’s population did so—but when the militia arrived, none of that mattered. Hamilton presided over a reign of terror in which government agents broke into homes and many Americans were arrested without charge and held for long periods in degrading conditions. Hamilton attempted to gather evidence to drag the perpetrators back to Philadelphia to stand trial, violating the Bill of Rights’ guarantee that all criminal trials be held in the area where the crime occurred. Hamilton hoped to find enough evidence to hang Gallatin, Findlay and her husband.
Fortunately, the effort mostly failed – although the husband died in the East after a long incarceration. Gallatin served first in the Senate and then in the House*,* as a man who was able to master and criticize Hamilton’s opaque Treasury reports. Hoagland details how Gallatin dismantled much of Hamilton’s financial system after becoming secretary of the treasury. Before the ensuing War of 1812, Gallatin reduced the national debt (which had risen to $84 million by the time of Jefferson’s first term as president) by nearly half. Even though he had to finance the Louisiana Purchase, he oversaw the abolition of all internal taxes. One of the contributions of this book is to demonstrate Gallatin’s often-overlooked financial genius.
hamilton plan Gives us a new appreciation for the character of America’s first Treasury Secretary. Even Hamilton’s contemporary Federalist Noah Webster aptly noted that Hamilton’s “ambition, pride, and overbearing temper” destined him to “become the evil genius of this country.”
Correction: This article originally misstated the order in which Albert Gallatin held various public offices.
