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Of all the
advocates of mixed government, Alexander Hamilton presented the most systematic
program. As we have seen, Hamilton
presented a systematic program for extreme centralization. That same proposal was also a system of true
mixed government on as near as possible to the British system. As Hamilton knew very well, his views were
extreme and likely to be rejected by the others. “In his private opinion he had no scruple in
declaring . . . that the British Gov’t was the best in the world: and he
doubted very much whether any thing short of it would do in America.” State senates, even the Maryland Senate that
served for five years and was chosen by an electoral college instead of the
people directly, were too weak to stand against the popular branches of the
state legislatures. He favored something
more like the House of Lords.
Having nothing to hope for by a change, and a sufficient interest by means of their property, in being faithful to the national interest, they form a permanent barriers agst every pernicious innovation, whether attempted on the part of the Crown or of the Commons.
Nor was he much
impressed with state governors:
As to the Executive, it seemed to be admitted that no good one could be established on Republican principles. Was not this giving up the merits of the question: for can there be a good Gov’t without a good Executive.*
What
Hamilton proposed was as near an approximation of the British system of a King,
Lords and Commons as could be done without hereditary offices. The lower house would be elected by the
people to three year terms, the upper house would be chosen by electors chosen
by the people and serve for good behavior, and the chief executive would be
chosen by electors and also serve for good behavior. “Good behavior” meant for life, unless
impeached; he would allow impeachment for misconduct. The executive would have an absolute veto,
absolute power of appointment of the heads of the departments of war, finance
and foreign affairs, and the authority to pardon all crimes except
treason. The Senate would have to
approve all other appointments and all pardons for treason and would have the
authority to declare war and approve treaties.
Furthermore,
Hamilton not only favored an executive and Senate for life, just like in Great
Britain, he also defended the British practice of executive influence in the
legislature by offering offices to legislators, widely seen as a form of corruption.
He defended “influence,” defined as “a dispensation of those regular
honors & emoluments, which produce an attachment to the Gov’t” as an
alternative to government by force. Likewise, he opposed making members of the
national legislature ineligible to executive office, saying that influence by
the crown through dispensation of offices was not corruption, but “an essential
part of the weight which maintained the equilibrium of the Constitution.” He thus went on
record, not only as defending the British system of government, but what were
widely seen as the worst corruptions and abuses in the system.
Yet
there is another side of Hamilton’s vision of mixed government that needs to be
pointed out. Hamilton favored true mixed
government. This meant that although he
wanted the President to be as near as possible to a monarch and the Senate to
be as near as possible to House of Lords, he also believed that the lower house
should be genuinely democratic. As he put it, “Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress
the many. Both therefore ought to have
power, that each may defend itself agst the other.” Interestingly, his conceptions of democracy
were almost entirely new democratic.
Hamilton
was a firm supporter of direct popular election of the House; when General
Pinckney proposed allowing each state to choose how to elect its own
Representatives as an attempt to transfer the election from the people to the
state legislature.
(Admittedly, this was probably more an expression of nationalism that
democracy; Hamilton wanted to limit the power of states). He was also a strong advocate of
representation by population in both houses.
He moved for representation by free population rather than quotas a
contribution and favored representation on the same principle
in the Senate. It was
in opposition to giving each state equal representation in the Senate that
Hamilton made his democratic pronouncement, “[A]s states or a collection of
individual me which ought we to respect most, the rights of the people
composing them, or the artificial beings resulting from the composition” and
argued that it was no loss of liberty for each citizen of Delaware to have an
equal vote to a citizen of Pennsylvania. Giving equal representation to states of
unequal population “shocks too much the ideas of Justice, and every human
feeling.” Hamilton was
absent when the delegates debated who should be allowed to vote. He did make a short speech on suffrage,
saying that different states had different standards, some states allowing it
where others did not, some having different qualifications to vote for
different branches of the legislature and all disqualifying some people
altogether because they lacked sufficient property. Hamilton’s point is not altogether clear, but
he appears to have been accepting each state’s right to set its own voting
qualification. As we have seen, this was
the new democratic position at the Convention; the undemocratic position being
to set federal restrictions on the vote.
Hamilton was also absent during debates on property qualifications for
office, but he took the “liberal” position on immigrants. Himself an immigrant from the Caribbean, he
opposed requiring any number of years’ citizenship to hold office; citizenship
should be sufficient since Congress could set any number of years’ residence to
qualify for citizenship.
Hamilton
took a decidedly un-old democratic position on the term of the House; he
favored three years, saying that “there ought to be neither too much nor too
little dependence, on the popular spirit,” and that if elections were too
frequent people lost interest in them. On the other hand, he supported at least one
old democratic principle; he favored enlarging the House from 65 members “with
great earnestness and anxiety” or the popular branch of the government would be
on so narrow a scale as to be dangerous to liberty. He also appeared to believe that enlarging
the House would prevent improper combinations between the President and Senate.
Hamilton
was absent from the Convention between June 29 and August 13. During that time, he developed his plan in
greater detail, which, although he did not discuss in the Convention, he did
privately show to Madison. His more
detailed version of the plan added a number of democratic features, old and
new. Realizing that his proposal to give
the national legislature authority to pass “all laws whatsoever,” he included
at least a partial bill of rights in his plan.
Since his Senate would serve for life and be almost a House of Lords, he
gave the lower house sole authority to initiate money bills. He would assign 100 members to the House and
40 to the Senate (both of which would reassure people who feared too small a
legislature) and have both apportioned by population. No property qualifications to office were
specified. Most significantly, however,
were the qualifications he proposed for voting.
He would allow all free males over 21 to vote for the House, with no
requirements for race, property or even taxpaying, a broader suffrage than even
Pennsylvania. He would require land
ownership to vote for Senatorial electors and fairly stiff property
requirements to vote for Presidential electors.** His lower house, in other words, is elected by universal manhood
suffrage, proportional to population, large enough to be on a broad base, and
with sole authority to originate money bills.
Yet it might not seem as democratic to his contemporaries as it does to
us because of that old bugaboo, three-year terms.
Hamilton
is generally considered an opponent of democracy and, as we have seen, this
reputation is largely accurate. But this
reputation is, perhaps, exaggerated by his opponents who opposed not only his
aristocratic outlook, but also his nationalism, and assumed that every increase
in centralization could only mean oppression.
Hamilton, on the other hand, recognized the creative and, yes,
democratic possibilities of an increase in centralization.
*Compare this with Hamilton’s comment for public consumption in Federalist Paper No. 70.. “There is an idea which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of foundation; since the can never admit its truth, without at the same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” Compare also to John Lansing's quote from his own notes, "It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan."
**Hamilton:
Writing, Copyright 1993 by Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.,
New York, New York, pp. 1062-1063.
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