Читать книгу Alexander Hamilton: Nation Builder - Nathan Schachner - Страница 3

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Alexander Hamilton is universally regarded as one of the greatest men our country has produced. The United States would have been a different nation had he never lived. What better reasons can there be for telling afresh the story of his life and achievements?

The stamp of Alexander Hamilton is still unmistakably visible on our form of government, our institutions, our finances, and our way of life. For better or worse, it is part of our heritage and can no more be eradicated than the traits we inherit from our parents. If we wish, therefore, to understand our country as it is today, it is essential to study the careers of Hamilton and his contemporaries, those more general parents of ours.

For their story is not dead or outmoded; it is as vital to us as the latest income tax bill or the most recent atomic explosion. The problems with which Hamilton and his fellows wrestled are still with us; the solutions they worked out are again under discussion; and the controversies are as bitter as ever they were in the days of Hamilton.

The issues that Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison argued and fought over are eternal ones: what form of government, what framework of society, what ethical philosophy of life best suit mankind and tend most to gain for it those rights which the Declaration of Independence proclaimed.

The debate still rages on these great questions which, perhaps, can never be answered conclusively. But the answers proposed by the founders were clear-cut and were backed by able reasoning. Hamilton gave one; Jefferson another. Each thought himself wholly right and the other wholly wrong.

Today we are not so sure. We feel that each had something vital and important to say, that the proper answer may be found in a combination of their ideas. To simplify is always dangerous; but it may well be said that the house of America in which we live follows essentially the structure blueprinted by Hamilton, while the spirit which breathes through it and pervades it is that of Jefferson.

The author is indebted to Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., the publisher of his larger study of Alexander Hamilton, for permission to incorporate here some of the material and conclusions reached in that book.

Nathan Schachner