103

This interesting, useful, and veryfrustrating book reprints and inter-

prets selections from 18th-, 19th-, and20th-century statesmen and writers.

But, Michael Lind’s anthology is asurvey of two opposite points of view—the republican, and the oligarchical—joined together and falsely labelled“Hamiltonianism.”

Lind vigorously defends AlexanderHamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secre-tary, as the mastermind of the Federalpolicy in the first years of the republic,whose outlook ultimately shaped theindustrialization and rise of the U.S.A.as a great power. Refuting slanders ofHamilton as aristocratic, Lind shows heworked to dissolve aristocracy anddestroy slavery.

What Lind calls Hamilton’s “demo-cratic nationalism” is upheld againstattack from both the leftists, whoequate it with “authoritarian tyrannyand . . . repression of minorities,” andfrom the right, which “identifiesnationalism with protectionism and afailure to understand the benefits of theglobal economy.”

Lind has risen a bit above the acade-mic swamp, to champion the Hamilton

tradition that could lead the worldaway from the abyss to which recentpolicy has led us. But, with thesepromising themes, the argumentdescends into a terrible historical mud-dle, which renders the book increasing-ly silly as it proceeds into 20th-centurymatters. Lind avoids any discussion ofAmerica’s struggle with the BritishEmpire and the British-centered finan-cial oligarchy. This makes for absurdhistory, since the American Revolution,and American nationalism since then,have been in fundamental opposition tothe latter.

For example, Lind asserts: “Formuch of the era between 1914 and 1989,Hamiltonian realists and Wilsonianglobalists . . . have been allied againstisolationists. . . . [T]he boundariesbetween globally minded Hamiltonianrealism and muscular Wilsonian idealismbecame very blurred, with both groupstending to support anti-Soviet allianceslike NATO and free trade (whichHamiltonians treated as an expedient tounite the anti-Soviet coalition . . . .”

Fareed Zakaria, managing editor ofthe Council on Foreign Relations maga-zine, Foreign Affairs, is quoted on

“American Realism,” which in Lind’smind continues Hamiltonian national-ism: “American Realism proceeds fromthe assumption that the Pax Britannicaof the Nineteenth century was a bless-ing, preserving peace, trade, and travelaround the world. The United Stateshas taken Britain’s place as the balancerof the world. . . . That the UnitedStates succeeded in [this] . . . suggeststhat American Realism may have appre-ciated aspects of the modern world—theuniversal appeal of democracy and the

research office, which eventuallybecame the Gestapo.

Kelley understates the importanceof Prince Philip’s schooling in NaziGermany at the Schloss Salem schoolof Kurt Hahn, as being merely a com-bination of cold showers and rigorousexercise. In fact, by the time PrincePhilip’s pro-Nazi sister Theodora hadarranged for him to come from Britainto attend Schloss Salem, the S.S. hadarrested Hahn, and the original rigorsof the “strength through joy” curricu-lum of the school had been trans-formed by a hefty contribution of Nazi“race science.”

Kelley is also wrong when she saysthat Lord Louis Mountbatten discour-aged the House of Windsor and Prince

Philip from corresponding with theirpro-Nazi relatives in Germany. For, itwas Lord Louis Mountbatten whobecame one of their most importantback-channels, through his sister Louise,the Crown Princess of pro-Nazi Swe-den. Moreover, Prince Philip developedties to the Duke of Windsor, who usedthis same back-channel from his post inexile.

As for Queen Elizabeth’s royal con-sort, HRH The Prince Philip, his earlyNazi race science training has led him tooutdo Hitler. As part of her “deal” withPrince Philip, the Queen made him the“chief enforcer” for what aristocraticinsiders call “The Club of the Isles”(being a coalition of landed andfinancier oligarchs, who have since

World War I seen the House of Wind-sor as primus inter pares within a Dogesystem). Prince Philip demonstrated his“enforcer” role as head of the World-wide Fund for Nature, where, in thename of preserving the environment, hehas murdered more Africans than AdolfHitler ever dreamed of. On more thanone occasion, Prince Philip has said inpublic: “In the event that I am reincar-nated, I would like to return as a deadlyvirus, in order to contribute somethingto solve overpopulation.”

Kitty Kelley’s revelation that theHouse of Windsor had a direct hand inthe “Hitler Project” is one of manythemes within her book that make ithighly recommended reading.

—Scott Thompson

Hamilton’s Republic: Readings in the American

Democratic NationalistTradition

edited by Michael LindNew York, Free Press, 1997

345 pages, hardbound, $25.00

Hamilton, Without the Revolution (Or, LaRouche, Without LaRouche)

Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 1998

© 1998 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited.

104

Frederick Douglass (1818?-1896) hadas his guiding principle throughout

his career, a commitment to truth andjustice as he understood it. He alwayssought to perfect that understanding.Thus, as he matured, that understand-ing, particularly of the principles of theAmerican Republic, deepened, liftinghim out of the swamp of Garrisonianabolitionism and social reform, tobecome a spokesman for the principleson which this republic was founded.After 1864, Douglass became a national-ist and a protectionist (in contradistinc-tion to his earlier defense of “freetrade”), in accordance with his fight forthe rights of all humanity, against theBritish Empire.

Unfortunately, Benjamin Quarles, apre-eminent African-American histori-an whose 1948 biography of Douglasswas considered groundbreaking, limit-ed the nature of his investigation of

Douglass’s biography.In his introduction to this new edi-

tion of the biography, published inhonor of Quarles, who died last year,James McPherson points out that Dou-glass was “a prime example of an ‘inner-directed’ personality; he grew up subjectto all the power of a ‘peculiar institution’that crushed the spark and ambition ofmost of its victims, yet somehow hefound the inner resources to overcomethe disadvantages of slavery.”

That inner-directedness led Douglassto seek out the means to learn to readwhile still a slave; to learn to play theviolin; to organize other slaves, andteach them to read while he and theywere still slaves; to devise, with the helpof friends, the escape of himself and hiswife from slavery; to investigate, whenhe realized that there was a tragic flawin Garrisonian abolition, the true anti-slavery nature of the U.S. Constitution.

And such was true of every new politicalbreakthrough Douglass would makethroughout his life.

Douglass, while still a slave, becamefamiliar with the speeches of John Quin-cy Adams, as well as the principled bat-

promise of the free market—whichmake it more realistic than the OldWorld’s cynicism.”

The LaRouche Factor

It happens to be a fact that Michael Lindis well acquainted with the work ofLyndon LaRouche, the individual whouniquely resurrected the nationalist tra-dition in contemporary world politics,and in historical analysis. Lind decidedto look away from LaRouche, whom theLondon-New York power axis hatesand fears.

But LaRouche has situated theAmerican Revolution in the long fightbetween oligarchy and humanistrepublicans. “Hamiltonianism,” minusthe deeper philosophical issues in thisfight, is nothing but a dead anduntruthful doctrinal category, falselyopposed to another unscientific catego-ry, “Jeffersonianism.” From this centralblunder comes a real mess of historicalerrors.

Lind wrongly ascribes to personality“quirks,” rather than to patriotic princi-ple, Hamilton’s desertion of the BostonAnglophile traitor-run Federalist party.

Hamilton thus elected Jefferson to thePresidency. Leading Hamiltonians suchas John Quincy Adams, Mathew Carey,and Henry Clay, opposed the Federal-ists. To suit his schema, which deletesthe fight with Britain, Lind then entire-ly blanks out these nationalists’ revivalof Hamilton’s program, through theirrallying of the nation to fight the defen-sive War of 1812 against Britain.

Lind makes the Confederate spawn,British-worshipping Teddy Rooseveltinto a “neo-Hamiltonian.” T.R.’s fi-nancier sponsor, J.P. Morgan, is calledby Lind an “industrial magnate of theGilded Age,” despite Morgan’s stated,fixed principle of never creating a newindustry. The mills and railroads ofwhich Morgan seized control were builtby the Henry C. Carey Philadelphiaanti-London, anti-Wall Street faction ofindustrial republicans, who are entirelyundescribed by Lind. Then, Lind por-trays the London-Wall Street FederalReserve System as “Hamiltonian.”

Lind denounces Abraham Lincoln’sopposition to the Mexican War as“unscrupulous.” He wrongly depicts thetwo Hamiltonians, Lincoln and

Franklin D. Roosevelt, as cleverly dis-honest, for publicly invoking ThomasJefferson and the Declaration of Inde-pendence. Contrary to Lind’s view, theDeclaration was not an Enlightenmentdocument, but the commitment of theAmerican nationalists to the Renais-sance Christian image of man; Jeffersonhimself later split with that commitmentafter falling in with Enlightenment rad-icals in France.

A nice Frederick Douglass extract onracial amalgamation buttresses Lind’sattack on multi-culturalism, as a betray-al of the struggle for the Union and uni-versal advancement. But, Lind’s MeltingPot concept is flawed in demandingIrish immigrants leave behind their“quarrels” with the British.

Lind calls John F. Kennedy an “inef-fectual” President, a “playboy million-aire” who “treated the executive branchas [his] personal fiefdom and believed[he] was above the law.” But J.F.K.sought to break out of London’s post-World War II strategic straitjacket.Might one suggest for the author, a reme-dial visit to Bunker Hill and Yorktown?

—Anton Chaitkin

Frederick Douglassby Benjamin Quarles

New York, Da Capo Press, 1997(reprint of 1948 edition)

378 pages, paperback, $15.95

When ‘Just the Facts’ Isn’t Enough