Favorite Founder

Radley Balko is posing the question, and I have to say that my favorite founding father is…Alexander Hamilton. Yes, the founder of American conservatism, yes, the prick who detested democracy and tried to overthrow the government at least twice. The reason I like Hamilton the most is that unlike other founding fathers, namely those prissy Virginia aristocrats like Jefferson or Washington, he was an entirely self made man. He was born an illegitimate child in Caribbean, came to America after being essentially orphaned, went to Columbia. He was also a forerunner of bloggers, seeing as the Federalist Papers were written both anonymously and serially (with Madison of course). He was America’s first urbanist, recognizing that the future of the country was in cities, as opposed to with Jefferson’s archaic yeoman farmers. And despite the constitution’s many anti-majoritarian flaws, it was still a much better document that the Articles of Confederation, and Hamilton played a huge role in its passing. And while not quite an abolitionist or a racial egalitarian, he was much closer to transcending the racial barbarism of his time than many contemporaries.

But all these accomplishments aren’t why I like Hamilton so. I like Hamilton because he was an almost literary figure. He clearly had the most drive, highest IQ and the most competence among any of the founders, but because he was prickly, unlikable and not an aristocrat, he never was able to realize a huge amount of power or fame. He was the nation’s first, and ultimate, technocrat - a kind of proto Gene Sperling, if you will. Like Edmund in King Lear, he was probably frustrated by his high intelligence and seemingly being stymied by the knaves around him so it led to a lot of resentment and the planning of coups. None of this excuses the innumerable flaws he had too, but he was certainly an interesting guy.

For more on the why the Hamiltonian policy agenda is not one liberals should be looking back fondly on, this Boston Review article is pretty good.

PS - Balko also included Thomas Paine in his poll, which I must dispute. Although Thomas Paine is a very admirable historical figure for being such a steadfast believer in individual rights as well as secularism, he wasn’t a “founder.” It’s true that Common Sense was influential in getting many Americans to support independence, but Paine didn’t do any heavy lifting in the actual Revolutionary war or in establishing governmental institutions - the two things that generally constitute the “Founding.”