What’s a rich person
to do? When it comes to politics or life
in general, rich people tend to prefer solo efforts. That is, they tend to want to “do it
themselves.” They want and can afford to
garner control and that means they prefer to shy away from entanglements with
others. Of course, reality is such that
that is often not possible, so instead of totally dismissing the assets others
can bring to the table, they form compromised accommodations. This is opposed to lesser endowed actors who
know quite well that they do not have such luxuries and are highly dependent on
the help of others. They in turn form
alliances. If one projects this to
national politics, we can say the political party that suffers more from
division is the party that more closely represents the rich, the Republican
Party. That party has been more of a
constellation of interests as opposed to an alliance of interests. Of course, as with most things, this is more
a tendency than a hard and fast rule, but one useful to keep in mind when
studying political campaigns.[1]
And no political
campaign demonstrates this more than the presidential campaign of 1800. Spoiler alert: Thomas Jefferson won that election. He won it with a man from the opposing party
as his vice president, Aaron Burr (yes, that Burr who did in Alexander
Hamilton). The details of why that
happened is beyond my purposes here, but makes for an interesting story you
might want to look up. No, actually, it
does have something to do with my purposes here, because one reason that Jefferson
won was due to the actions of Hamilton.
More below.
You see, the 1800
election marks the first time in our history when the party in power lost and
the opposing party won and took over the reins of power. For a nation not well established within its
institutions, this could easily have been an iffy thing, but it was pulled off
without much disruption. The reason is
central to what I am conveying. I have
written how the predominant political construct of the time was traditional
federalism: a view of politics that at its core believes a polity is made up of
members of a community coming together to form it. This is done under the auspices of a binding
compact. The question I have not
addressed too clearly has been who makes up that community. Are all included? One of the defining developmental themes of
American politics has been how the definition of a political community has been
determined. Initially, the real
political community was defined as all families who own property, represented
by the patriarch of that family. Hence,
the vote was limited to males who owned some minimal amount of property. This was the case in 1800. With that as context, we have the first
meaningful challenge by the agrarian portion of that population to the more
moneyed portion.
Under the auspices of
President George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the
Treasury, instituted our first financial system. The policy called for paying off the national
debt and providing subsidies for those who were willing to invest in the
American economy, specifically benefiting those who invested in manufacturing,
finances, and public securities. And all
this was being paid for by taxes which fell most heavily on planters and
farmers – the agrarians. To the rescue
came Thomas Jefferson and his followers known as the Republicans. They fought the Federalists, Hamilton’s
party, in the 1800 election and they won.
Did that mean the
dismantling of the Hamiltonian system?
Nope, it did not. As Richard
Hofstadter[2]
quite clearly informs us, Jefferson understood that a system that had already
become institutionalized – the system had been in effect for twelve years –
would be too disruptive to change, much less eliminate. An attempt to do so could cause such upheaval
that a depression could result and hurt the very planters and farmers Jefferson
championed. So, with some few exceptions
– the excise tax was eliminated and the national bank expired – the provisions
of Hamilton’s system were maintained.
My point here is to
encourage history teachers to not be so engrossed with the individual actors,
such as Jefferson and Hamilton, but to give more attention to the groups and
organizational climate of a given time in order to see what the real politics
of that time were. While Jefferson can
truly be considered the spokesperson for the interests of the agrarian faction,
he by no means let ideology dictate his policies. Instead, he took, as president, a posture
that respected the landscape of the political realities with which he dealt. A way to begin asking the telling questions
about a particular time is to see the American polity as a federal arrangement. The first question becomes: who makes up the federated polity during the
time being studied?
As for the role
Hamilton played in the 1800 election, when the decision was thrown into the
House of Representatives, controlled by Federalists, Hamilton lobbied for
Jefferson. This was a decidedly antagonistic
act against his fellow New Yorker, Aaron Burr.
In a letter to one House member, Hamilton predicted that Jefferson, as
president, would not be a radical, but an accommodator. This accurate prediction might not have
secured Jefferson’s victory, but it surely did not hurt.
[1] For an interesting description of this trend see Schattschneider,
E. E. (1960). The
semi-sovereign people: A realist’s view
of democracy in America. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. This general tendency should not be interpreted
as saying that the Republican Party is more in disarray or undisciplined. Perhaps due to the herd character of their
constituency, the Party, as compared to the Democrats, is much more disciplined
generally. It is said that in the
Republican Party, presidential nominees are chosen more as a process of
determining whose turn it is. Lately,
though, with the rise of the Tea Party faction and that of the evangelicals,
the Party is not as disciplined as it once was.
[2] The factual information concerning the 1800 election
and its aftermath are based on Hofstadter, R.
(1948). The American political
tradition. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
