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pollor
, October 16, 2008
Why I wrote this book: Peter O'Lalor
I discovered as an undergraduate; federalism, Federalists, and the 1790's are a much neglected area in academia and in American history. Federalism as a polity, (how societies organize into a governing body) as well as the political persuasion, (today’s Republican party) had seemed to me then, as now, not understood by the general reader, citizen, or political pundits.
Following a Political Science course in my Junior year, I prepared an article for the American Historical Review on the recommendation of my professor. The article was met with much interest by the then Senior Editor. I was invited to reinforce the article, A Legacy of an Eighteenth-Century Rivalry: Jefferson and Hamilton, with an historiographical context. To learn historiography I enrolled in the Senior Mentor Project which was intensive self directed curriculum. Under the auspices of Professor R. Lettierri, himself a prolific writer and historian I began a journey of research, lasting many years beyond graduation. Ultimately I completed an historical work with a precise historicity (historical non-fiction) and concise historiography, (history of the written word). Professor Lettierri had passed away, and the road to publishing new scholarship was difficult.
The Never Realized Republic deals first and foremost with principle. Principle as a basic truth on which all other truths rest. When I eventually began teaching at the college level, Political Science was my first teaching experience. I found myself with an assigned text, and more than 30 students all eager to embrace the understanding of politics as the power of one group over another. To this end, Nationalism or an emotional attachment used by the State to support their cause, brought my book into daily lectures and discussions about federalism and federal polity.
This is where The Never Realized Republic became useful in demonstrating to students, that it was not how federalism or its republic was intended. To replace duty and obligation with "a government for its own sake," was clearly a Polybian promise of perversion and corruption. Polybius, a classical historian, posed a theory that all great republics that sought to do good for the public good, (republican virtue) would always fall away from or not remain true to their republican principle, virtue, which is of course corruption. We can see this in all the great republics. The greater the republic the longer the time. Take for example Rome. From the banishment of the Tarquin kings to the age of the Ceasers was half a millennium. From the time of Pericles and Athens, centuries as well. Republics have risen and fallen all due to failing virtue.
With America's infant republic and nascent capitalism, the central authority to which the federal Executive branch had become, differed greatly from the central government the Revolutionary generation intended. Using nationalism, which is an emotional attachment used by the State to support its cause; the Executive branch quickly became a government that existed for its own sake. While this is made clear by A.H. Cole citing Hamilton's backing of industry in the 1790's, it extended to federal polity. See "an industry for 'its own sake,." in Arthur Harrison Cole, ed., Industrial and Commercial Correspondences of Alexander Hamilton: Anticipating His Report Manufactures, (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1928, 1968). 232.
However, this direct encouragement of private industry “for its own sake,” was not successful in Congress and the bill did not pass. “The new nation seemed to be inflicted by the very same symptoms of the British political and moral economy that the Revolutionaries had risked their lives to escape.” McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 105. Yet, it wasn't industry that Hamilton wanted to aggrandize it was government. Industry was merely the means to make of America a second England. That old tired scholarly argument as to what was Hamilton's motivation and purpose was ought to be settled in The Never Realized Republic. "In a broader context of domination and expansion, Hamilton set out “to make a second England of America, eventually to take over Britain's ascendancy, that was a pursuit of national greatness that Hamilton linked to his own striving for enduring fame."Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), 6. Furthermore, As Rose succinctly states it "There seems to be a continuing effort to preserve and use Hamilton as a symbol. The result has not been history.” Stanley D. Rose, “Alexander Hamilton and the Historians,” Vanderbilt Law Review, II, (1958), 854. What Hamilton represents is for most, more important than who he was, what he believed, or what motivated him.
In America, as much as the Revolutionary generation made great strides to maintain virtue, changing their governments three times, from Royalist, to Confederate, to finally a federal Constitution, it took less than a decade before the tradition of the Magna Carta and a sworn duty of the king was altered from the duty of the sovereign to the right of the sovereign. There was much more than statutory law in the statement "He [the King] has refused to ascend to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good. It was as even as before the Magna Carta, that the sovereign had a solemn duty to the people. That tradition was torn asunder when under the Federalists and the right of the sovereign replaced the duty of the sovereign. When the traditions of common law became less pertinent than precedent and statutory law.
Herein lies the meaning of American polity and why there is not only the petty squabbles of political parties and there pundits, but the differences between the duty and obligation of government - between Federalists, (today’s Republicans) and Republicans, (today’s Democrats). However, all in all neither represent the Revolutionary generation because their idea of republican government was rooted in and motivated by representation of all the people. America was intended to be a representative republic. However, if you replace republic with democracy - a representative democracy will not bring to mind the republic or its principle - virtue.
However, the promise of virtue and the threat of corruption was never expected to come so soon as the 1790's. To understand how something changes is to understand what has been changed and why. This is the contributing scholarship that is The Never Realized Republic: Political Economy and Republican Virtue. Who is to say what the public good is - is to be found clearly and most precisely in The Never Realized Republic: echoing the silenced scholars of the Revolution.
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