Hamilton vs. Jefferson: A Battle Over America's Soul That Never Ended
New on Acton Line
Everyone thinks they know the Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry. One wanted a strong federal government and national bank; the other wanted an agrarian republic of small farmers. Broadway certainly has an opinion. But how well do we actually understand what these two founders envisioned — and does it even matter for the debates we’re having right now?
It matters a great deal, as I learned in this week’s conversation with John Pinheiro, director of research at the Acton Institute.
John recently reviewed Robert C. Hockett’s A Republic of Producers for Law & Liberty. Hockett, a legal theorist at Cornell, attempts something ambitious: fusing Hamilton’s financial vision with Jefferson’s agrarian ideals into a unified economic program for today. The title of John’s review — “A Failure of Vision” — gives you some idea of how he thinks that project turned out.
What makes this conversation worth your time isn’t just the early Republic history, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the deeper methodological question lurking underneath: What happens when non-historians try to do history?
Legal theorists, policy writers, and political commentators regularly raid the founding era for ammunition. They want Hamilton or Jefferson on their side. But as John argues, cherry-picking from the past to justify present-day policy prescriptions is a fundamentally different enterprise from understanding the past on its own terms — and the results are often distorted in ways that matter.
We also got into Herbert Croly’s The Promise of American Life and its 20th-century legacy, the enduring wisdom of Federalist No. 51, and even Nietzsche’s surprisingly relevant essay on the uses and abuses of history.
If you care about the American founding, the misuse of history in political arguments, or just want a wide-ranging intellectual conversation, give this one a listen.
Watch the full episode: YouTube
Read John’s review: “A Failure of Vision” at Law & Liberty
