(DOWNLOAD) "What Would Hamilton Do?" by Harvard Journal of Law&Public Policy ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: What Would Hamilton Do?
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law&Public Policy
- Release Date : January 01, 2012
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 275 KB
Description
On July 14, 1804, Gouverneur Morris stood by an open coffin at the front of Trinity Church in Manhattan and addressed a massive crowd that filled every nook of the sanctuary and spilled out into the street of lower Broadway. (1) Morris had been one of the most active and influential delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Now he was at Trinity Church to eulogize his friend, Alexander Hamilton, who had tragically been shot and killed at a dueling ground in Weehawken, New Jersey, by the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr. Hamilton himself had shot high and wide, but the Vice President shot straight and true, and his bullet found its mark. (2) Morris reminded the audience of his friend's valor during the Revolutionary War, his unflagging advocacy of the Constitution, and his exemplary public service as first Secretary of the Treasury and counselor at the bar. (3) At the end of his oration, Morris offered the assembled mourners some practical advice about how to decide difficult political questions in the future: Pay more attention to acts than "professions," he warned. (4) And most significant: "[O]n a doubtful occasion ask, Would Hamilton have done this thing?" (5) What would Hamilton have done? Not a bad question to ask, even today. But I doubt anyone in the United States in 2011 is doing that. For all his brilliance and influence on the Founding, Hamilton stands as the odd man out in the current ideological divide. Conservatives today tend to favor limited government and strict constitutional construction--ideas Hamilton rejected in favor of energetic administration and broad construction. Even so, one might still expect some, like the Federalist Society, to champion Hamilton's legacy. After all, Hamilton was the progenitor of the Federalist Papers and founder of the Federalist Party. (6) Yet it is the portrait of James Madison--a Jeffersonian Republican--that graces the Federalist Society logo, not Hamilton's.
 "What Would Hamilton Do?" by Harvard Journal of Law&Public Policy ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}