The Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Fleming, 2003, p. 170
On the night before the duel, Hamilton wrote a letter to a leading New England Federalist, stating his final opinion of the plan to secede. "Dismemberment of our empire," he wrote, "will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages without any counterbalancing good." Why? Secession would not cure "our real disease; which is DEMOCRACY."
This is from a new book and the quote is not footnoted.
The book jacket claims:
Thomas Fleming is the author of more than forty works of history and historical fiction ... He contributes regularly to American Heritage and many other magazines and is a frequent guest and contributor on NPR, PBS, A&E, and History Channel programs. A Fellow of the society of American Historians, he has served as chairman of the American Revolution Round Table and as president of the PEN American Center.
If true, this quote will radically change my views on Hamilton. I've always thought AH was a better man than his defenders, who seem to do their work only at the expense of H's opponents.
I have no problem with that statement because secession would not cure us from democracy but I would go back to the first
"Dismemberment of our empire," he wrote, "will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages without any counterbalancing good."
Even here, he refers to this nation as an empire and considering his stance on a monarchy, my statement still stands. He was no friend of a Republic. He may have felt a Republic could have possibly brought this nation closer to the monarchy he so desired. However, as evidenced again by the actions of his political grandson and the passage of the 17th, it's quite evident, to me it seems, that a Democracy twisted the right way can bring about a monarchy all by itself
"I am persuaded no Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1809.
"A Republic, not an Empire" is a 20th century slogan. A confusion about the meanings of "empire" is involved. On the one hand, an empire is a monarchy -- or even perhaps a tyranny -- under the rule of an emperor. On the other hand, a large realm of extended territories or agglomerated peoples is an empire, though it might have a republican form of government. Athens had an empire when it was a democracy. Rome became an empire when it was still a Republic.
The Founders were more honest -- or at least better informed about the meaning of the word "empire" -- than we are. They certainly prefered republics to monarchies or empires, and even fought an empire, but they grew up under it. They knew an empire when they saw one, and a vast country stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the Rockies or the Pacific was an empire. It was hard to avoid that fact. From the beginning, we were to be a republic, but in so far as our country extended to the Mississippi and was larger than any European state, save Russia, we were an empire -- or we had an empire west of Appalachians to settle and make our own.
Later generations had been brought up on the idea that because we fought an empire we couldn't be one. The idea of empire had also changed, too. It came to mean "overseas possessions," or "global involvements," rather than "extensive territory" or "aggregate of peoples and territories."