The details are well known. The wealthy Virginian general and the precocious New Yorker traced the outline of a government that has persisted to the present and will undoubtedly last well into the future. The overarching theme of these separate but related works is the American willingness, then as now, to seek out ideas. If the twentieth century demonstrated how a more refined approach eclipsed the many virtues of brute strength, the agonies of starting a country cast the achievements of Hamilton and Washington into sharp relief.
Sustaining a tradition is easy; establishing one is not. American success is harnessed to a worldview that undermines appeals to tradition and precedent. Intellectual sclerosis is unknown in the United States because its citizens are not shackled by the notion that historical triumphs guarantee victories in the future. Many foreigners have criticized Americans for their bumptious rituals and jingoistic nationalism. What too many outsiders fail to perceive is that imperishable – and yes, often strange – mores are superseded by a deep love of good ideas. Washington and Hamilton had no choice in the matter; they were tasked with pouring the foundation, not improving the superstructure.
It is a common misconception that the American War of Independence was fought to end taxation without representation. Although extortionate tax policies fanned the flames of outrage, bureaucratic tyranny is rarely sufficient cause for war. Usury was, in the American case, just another symptom and not the disease. Make no mistake: Washington and Hamilton fought to jettison orthodoxy and discard prevailing standards, but they did so under the banner of paradigmatic change. The established system was obviously flawed, its strictures unconscionable to the entrepreneurial colonists. That this notion occurred simultaneously in so many powerful men is evidence of its validity; that repeated attempts at conciliation failed point only to British intractability. War was a last resort. Meeting the redcoats in battle with few resources, fewer men, and a bankrupt war chest was a losing proposition. That the American upstarts managed to win was miraculous, the stuff mythology is made of – and perhaps the topic of a later essay. It is sufficient to note that Washington and Hamilton carried with them into office the spirit of change.
Their partnership resembled that of a proud father and intractable son: often strained but always underscored by the ineffable. Washington and Hamilton emerged from the Revolution little harmed by bitter disagreements, obloquy, insubordination – inevitable detritus of years in the field. War annealed their friendship, hardened their commitments. Their friendship – for that is what it was – did not end at Yorktown; it persevered through the end of the war, the uncertain beginnings, and ultimately produced a nation. The first Americans were lucky to count among their number Washington and Hamilton, a fact undisputed by most. History, however, has demonstrated that their true worth lay not in individual action but in the accomplishments together.
Hamilton was the firebrand, relentless in his pursuit of ideas and unmatched in conviction. His only intellectual equal was Thomas Jefferson, a man whose monumental vision is eclipsed by stunning contradictions and a flair for disputation. If Washington, staid and caution, was the moral fibre that held together fledgling America, Hamilton was the font from which a fully-formed nation sprung. His poisonous pen and deep, often fortified convictions often landed him in trouble. Hamilton’s insistence on fighting the fatal duel with Aaron Burr can be linked to his absolute unwillingness to compromise his principles, his perception of the truth. Washington recognized this tendency and strove to moderate, if not eliminate it. He required a profusion of ideas, not some pugilistic sidekick.
Washington, unlike his younger counterpart, was neither a prolific writer nor a fertile breeding ground for cutting-edge ideas. He preferred deliberation to rashness, determination to equivocation. Bent on concealing his turbulent emotions and towering rages, he endeavoured to remain detached. His journals and letters reveal little, his contemporaries even less. One gets the distinct impression that no one – perhaps not even his beloved Martha – really knew George Washington. Chernow agrees, stating that the first president “ranks as the most famously elusive figure in American history, a remote, enigmatic personage more revered than truly loved.” In sharp contrast with Hamilton, who is either hated or adored, Washington remained aloof.
Fortunately for everyone, Washington was adept at channeling Hamilton’s impulses. Early American history is shot through with over-simplifications. As Chernow points out, Hamilton “to this day...seems trapped in a crude historical cartoon that pits “Jeffersonian democracy” against “Hamiltonian aristocracy.” It is certainly true that Jefferson and Hamilton diverged sharply in their view of democracy; and that the former’s conception of political democracy was probably more fair – or at least more equitable – than that of the latter. Arbitrary reductionism can be effective, but is necessarily hampered by a lack of important detail. Just as Jefferson’s complex worldview cannot be summed up in the idea of agrarian democracy, Hamilton cannot be painted with the brush of elitism and monied privilege. It is certainly true that Hamilton “was the prophet of the capitalist revolution in America,” but his exertions were always intended to foster a stable economic climate, a financial landscape suitable for growth and harvest, growth and harvest. Washington recognized this and sought to harness Hamilton’s compulsive and often rash flood of words and thoughts. Without the presidential razor to strip away the fat, Hamilton would have languished, indecipherable to all but the most highly educated personages.
The United States survived its birth because of the combined efforts of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, the firmament and the swirling sea. Neither man could have succeeded alone; only together were their talents sufficient to spawn a nation – an economically stable, forward-looking nation. Many people regard Washington, insofar as these things are quantifiable, as the greatest of presidents. They cite all manner of reasons, from his unwillingness to accept the mantle of a king to his adroit management of the bellicose politicians clamouring for his attention. These opinions are both natural and wrong. Washington is enshrined among the greatest leaders of our – or any – time because of his willingness to explore, to plumb new depths and scale new heights. He understood the fundamental importance of the idea to the emergent United States, and his recruitment of Hamilton allowed the nation to flourish. Then as now the good idea reigns supreme. Temporal difficulties are insignificant so long as the nation preserves its faith in the power of thought, of vision, and of idea.
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Both books are magnificent works of history and biography. Chernow has the rare ability to discard the inevitable detritus of a life well lived. Both volumes are long – Washington is apparently the longest single-volume biography of the first president ever published – but neither contains a superfluous word. Aimless digressions are absent. Chernow’s books are a cheerful antithesis to Gore Vidal’s assessment of an emerging trend in biography:
When it comes to any one of the glorious founders of our imperial republic, the ten-volume hagiography is now the rule. Under the direction of a tenured Capo, squads of graduate students spend years assembling every known fact, legend, statistic. The Capo then factors everything into the text, like sand into a cement mixer. The result is, literally, monumental, and unreadable.Chernow’s volumes are certainly monumental – Alexander Hamilton runs 818 pages; Washington a cool 904 – but neither qualifies as unreadable. In the realm of popular history Chernow is a titan. His books weld exuberant prose and unquenchable enthusiasm with academic detachment and profound insight. Alexander Hamilton and Washington are magnificent examples of fine scholarship and beautiful storytelling – required reading for anyone interested in the foundation, and indeed the evolution of, the American republic.
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