The Age of
Federalism examines the formative first 12 years of the American republic under the U.S.
Constitution.
This period was dominated
by a conflict between two views of how American society should develop:
Federalism and Republicanism. Yet the
book’s title refers to just one of those views: Federalism. The authors, Stanley Elkins and Eric
McKitrick, view federalism as a unique feature of this period. Never before had federalism gained such
prominence among the leading figures of the nation. And after Jefferson’s
republicanism transformed American politics, federalism would never again appear
in the same form as in those first 12 years.
Yet federalism left its stamp on the form and character of American
society ever after. The Age of Federalism provides a definitive account of the history
of this period and how that transformation of American society came about.
Federalism is never explicitly defined in the book, but it
is exemplified by the character and ideology of its leading proponent, Alexander
Hamilton, one of the most significant characters in the book. Hamilton
sought a society with an energetic national
government and chief executive. To him, only an energetic government could
foster a flourishing economy and society.
He sought trade as a vigorous engine for the economy, and trade
specifically with England,
because that country had a vigorous economy and could supply the most power to
the engine of the American economy. He
was a visionary who saw what America
could be and sought to harness the energy of government to achieve his vision.
This can be contrasted with what came before the U.S.
Constitution. Under the Articles of
Confederation, state governments were dominant.
The state governments were not strong enough to stand up for and be
effective advocates for American interests on the world stage. They were not strong enough to settle the
debts of the Revolutionary War, much less to go into further debt to monetize
the American economy. Federalism was
fundamentally a strategy for bringing a unified American nation into being.
Republicanism is also never explicitly defined in the book,
but it is exemplified by the characters and ideologies of its leading
proponents, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
While Hamilton wanted to create a society
as economically robust as England,
Madison and Jefferson felt the Revolution was about creating a society entirely
different from England. They felt that the strength of American
society would come from the virtue of its citizens rather than the energy of
its economy. They felt that in order to
become a great nation, America
had to protect her independence, rather than tie herself to the interests of
another nation. They too had a vision
for what America
could be – a nation of virtuous independent citizens – and they sought to
harness the power of government to achieve it.
This ideology was more in line with what had come before,
but there were still important differences.
Madison
was never an anti-federalist. On the contrary, he, along with Hamilton, was one of the
leading proponents of the Constitution. Jefferson too was not really opposed to having a federal
government. The conflict between
federalism and republicanism was not over the power of the federal government,
but over the kind of society that America would be – a society in
which money and trade commanded the interests that government would promote, or
a society in which virtue and independence defined those interests.
The two forces met and clashed in the cabinet of George Washington,
the first President. Hamilton and
Jefferson were the leading members of the cabinet. Madison
was a leading member of Congress. Washington certainly triedhis best to keep all interests
represented in his government, to keep America whole and undivided into
faction. But ultimately he was a
federalist. How could he not be? As the leader of the first American government
he had to establish its legitimacy; he had to succeed. He had to set up institutions that would
solve the problems of the country, and in doing so he set up a government more
to Hamilton’s liking than to Jefferson’s and Madison’s. And Washington’s
government set the precedents for all of his successors. Thus federalism set its imprint on American
society.
Yet even as this was happening, federalism was setting up to
fall to republicanism. The American
Revolution did change American society.
It did create a nation different from England. It was one in which aristocracy had no more
sway and so ordinary people had their say.
Democratic clubs rose up around the country, giving voice and power to
an interest entirely unrelated to that of the Hamiltonian merchants and
bankers. It transformed American
politics and gave rise to one of the most stable eras of Presidential politics in
American history: from Jefferson to Madison to Monroe to Adams we had an
unbroken chain of 4 Presidents of the same party for a full 28 years. With the election of Jefferson,
federalism ended as a force in American society.
Throughout the book, the authors give careful, detailed, and
vivid depictions of the central personalities, ideologies, and movements that
swept through this era. They mesh
intellectual history, social history, historiography, and the history of great
leaders engaging in dramatic statecraft on the world stage. This book is a must read for anyone who
wishes to understand the history of the Revolution and the early American
republic.