PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In offering to the public a second edition of my book on Hamilton a word or two may not be out of place on the bearing of his ideas of statecraft on our present national problems. Hamilton believed in a strong military organization. He knew, that which it has taken the European war to teach us, that our national sovereignty is secure only if we are prepared and able to defend it by force. In this world of nations with conflicting rights and ambitions "a nation, despicable by its weakness," he said in the Federalist, "forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." Hamilton advocated a vigorous foreign policy which would protect American unity and honor both within our own borders and on the high seas. In his day, as in ours, the hyphenated citizen was a menace. His words to King in 1796 sound strangely modern. "We," he said, "are laboring hard to establish in this country principles more and more national and free from all foreign ingredients, so that we may be neither 'Greeks nor Trojans,' but truly Americans." In his day, as in ours, American commerce suffered at the hands of warring nations who on the plea of military necessity disregarded the principles of public law. In his day, France, as Germany in ours, threatened American nationality with her proselyting dream "of new-modeling the political institutions of the rest of the world according to her standard." His foreign policy, resisting, on the one hand, the sentimental appeals of our own citizens and, on the other, the violations of our rights and honor by foreign governments, should never cease to be a part of our national creed. Hamilton was devoted to industrial preparedness. His policy of protection was a part of his nationalism. He advocated industrial self-sufficiency and a diversification of industrial life. He believed that the complex life which manufactures create would instill in the nation the spirit of enterprise and efficiency. As a nation we are today turning our thoughts toward the reconstruction of industry. We have demanded that industry recognize its obligation to the public and we in turn are coming to recognize the obligation of our national government to industry. Cooperation and efficiency are on every tongue. They are, it is true, of primary importance. But in the rebuilding of industry and in the commercial rivalry which will follow the war, Hamilton's policy of protection will have its place. Tariff laws are sometimes the only means of establishing industrial security and of forcing reciprocal concessions from other nations. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Hamilton stood for a strong Federal government with comprehensive powers of administration. It is becoming more and more evident that the needs of modern society cannot be met by the Jeffersonian let-alone theory of government. Federal legislation and court decisions are limiting the activities of individual states and creating gradually an efficient national organization. Theodore Roosevelt is the embodiment of this movement away from individualism. He has revealed to us the true relation of Hamilton's national ideals to modern problems. He has passed over as non-essential those undemocratic measures of Hamilton which have proved stumbling-blocks to some superficial students, and seized upon Hamilton's nationalism as an effective means of reform. "The whole tendency of Roosevelt's program," Herbert Croly says in "The Promise of American Life," "is to give a democratic meaning and purpose to the Hamiltonian tradition and method. He proposes to use the power and the resources of the Federal government for the purpose of making his countrymen a more complete democracy in organization and practice. . . . He has completely abandoned that part of the traditional democratic creed which tends to regard the assumption by the government of responsibility, and its endowment with power adequate to the responsibility as inherently dan gerous and undemocratic. He realizes that any efficiency of organization and delegation of power which is necessary to the promotion of the American national interest must be helpful to democracy. More than any other American political leader, except Lincoln, his devotion both to the national and to the democratic ideas is thorough-going and absolute." Emporia, Kansas. W. S. C. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION In its original form this essay was awarded in 1910 the John Addison Porter Prize in Yale University, established by the Kingsley Trust Association (the corporate name of Scroll and Key Society of Yale College). I have made some changes in the manuscript as it was first submitted. I have, in some cases, altered the form of statement; in others, cut out passages which seemed unnecessary. In chapters seven, eight and nine I have added certain unpublished material which, since the prize was awarded, I have found among Hamilton's papers in the Library of Congress. But these changes and additions have all been in accord with the outline and conclusions of the original manuscript and the essay as now published is substantially as it won the prize. The material here published for the first time relates to manufactures. No attempt has been made to publish anything except a few passages which throw light on the problem of this essay. I refer to the unpublished preliminary drafts of the Report on Manufactures as "MS. Manufactures, 1, 2, and 3." The unpublished letters which I have used are referred to by the volume and page in Hamilton's papers in the Library of Congress. I have used the Federal Edition of his |