Desperately Seeking Alex, Ignoring Albert The Clash of the Treasury Secretaries

There is currently a political squabble arising out of which party embodies the political economic ideals of Alexander Hamilton. The controversy stems from a Brookings Institution initiative dubbed the "The Hamilton Project" spearheaded by former Treasury Secretary Robert Ruben, who takes issue with Bush administration polices and suggests they are inconsistent with the thoughts of Hamilton. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary John Snow insists the Bush administration's policies are consistent with Hamilton.

If two supposedly different parties, both presumably knowledgeable about history, claim the same ideological ancestry to Hamilton then perhaps the two parties are not very different. Interestingly, absent from this current rift are any references to the dispute that framed Hamilton's age. The difference of opinion that enveloped the post-revolutionary era was the respective balance of power between the federal and state authorities, where the federal government's powers were "few and defined." In the context of Hamilton's age, the disagreement between Ruben and Snow is tantamount to infighting between like-minds within a single faction.

Synchronizing the thoughts of Hamilton with modern policy is extremely difficult and ripe for subjectivity, yet to draw order from chaos in the broadest sense, Hamilton was a Federalist; a person who believed in a "strong" central government by the standards of his own age. Anti-Federalists, led by Thomas Jefferson, believed in a more limited central authority in the vein of federalism and states' rights. Ultimately, Hamilton's Federalist beliefs would lead to his infamous death by the apt hand of Anti-Federalist, and then Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr.

Despite the ebb and flow of popular sympathies between federalism and nationalism, the argument continued until the end of the Civil War. There in that great epic the issue was "settled" not by deliberate discourse based on empirical reason, but rather through mortal attrition and brute force.

Today, we have two supposedly opposing parties quibbling over the means to which they desire to control the lives of those they govern. Two factions of the same "party" who believe only through their efforts can we effectively educate our own children, secure our own retirements and steer our own destinies. Overregulation and broad Supreme Court rulings have dissolved the power of the states and blurred their borders. Less for their respective topographies and some traffic laws, states have become indistinguishable to a degree unimaginable to even the most ardent Federalist.

For the sake of perspective, Hamilton had an adversarial counterpart of equal stature, who modern partisans dare not peddle. If one strolls among the cannons of Manhattan's financial district, they will inevitably venture upon Trinity Church, a hauntingly majestic church surrounded by scores of weathered tombstones and monuments. Among the graves, lay the vestiges of Alexander Hamilton and, as fate would have it, his economic nemesis Albert Gallatin another Treasury secretary, less known but to students of history and political economy.

Like Hamilton, Gallatin was a foreigner, who like Thomas Paine came to our shores with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. While a member of the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Finance, which through Gallatin's urging became a permanent Ways and Means Committee, Gallatin peppered Hamilton on his tax and spending policies and insisted on a Treasury transparently accountable to Congress.

After the Federalists lost the White House, Jefferson appointed Gallatin to head the Treasury. In one year, he implemented strategies that would reduce the massive debt accrued during the preceding Federalists administrations. He moved to repeal all internal taxation, sharply curtailed federal spending and changed how the Treasury itemized its expenditures for Congressional oversight.

By 1809, as Gallatin accurately predicted, his efforts succeeded in bringing down the $83 million dollar debt to $57 million while bearing the additional financial burdens of the Louisiana Purchase and prosecuting a war against piracy along the African shores of Tripoli. The economy grew and flourished. Only the British blockades and the subsequent War of 1812 thwarted Gallatin's course. Under Madison, Gallatin astutely bonded the direct cost of the war.

Beyond his financial prowess, Gallatin held great faith in individual liberty and a polity's ability to make decisions that would positively affect their own lives. While some blame his niggardly administration of appropriations to our armed forces during the peace before the War of 1812, few can deny that his efforts grew the economy and established our young country's credit worthiness. This credibility allowed the United States to effectively fight our second war of independence. It bears mentioning that Gallatin was the primary negotiator of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.

Gallatin was a conservator of the people's money and perhaps our most successful Treasury Secretary at an extremely critical time in our country's history. Nevertheless, do not hold your breath if you expect the political parties to fawn after his name and create a "Gallatin Project." Such a project would propose that the federal government cut unnecessary spending, cut taxes and shrink itself; in essence dry the mother's milk of modern political parties. Such a project would not think its "sovereigns" a bunch of naves but rather trust in the good stead of their judgments.

If such a think-tank were to exist, above its mast would read the words of Gallatin written to Jefferson after deciding to leave Treasury as the winds of political rent started to blow. He wrote, "I cannot my dear sir, consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans a seeker of resources for the purposed of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate."

Hamilton rightly occupies a reverent place in our country, his name is bid for by political parties and the Untied States has printed it on every ten-dollar bill since 1929. Albert Gallatin's name is etched on a crypt in Trinity's yard.

  Alexander Hamilton’s memorial and remains (left) occupy a prominent location in the Southern side of Trinity Church’s yard and Albert Gallatin’s (right) rest in the opposite side of the yard a few hundred feet away.

May 13, 2006