Chapter III · (continued 2)
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I have also spoken of Hamilton's preference for monarchical institutions, upon evidence of which I have not felt myself at liberty to doubt. But it is due to the memory of that distinguished man that we should speak of his disposition in that respect with more precision than might be deemed necessary in other cases. To assume that he was a friend to monarchy as it existed in England in the times of the Stuarts and their predecessors would be doing him gross injustice. No man in the country, in his day, respected less the absurd dogma of the divine right of kings, or regarded with more contempt the reverence paid by gaping crowds to the pomp and pageantry of royalty and to the carefully guarded relics and reliquaries of the hoar institution of monarchy, than Alexander Hamilton. He was, beyond all doubt, entirely sincere when he said, in the Federal Convention, that he "was as zealous an advocate for liberty as any man whatsoever, and trusted he would be as willing a martyr to it, though he differed as to the form in which it was most eligible;" and had he been a fellow-subject and contemporary of Russell, and Sydney, and Hampden, we may believe that he would have proved himself as prompt as either to make sacrifices equal to theirs in resistance to arbitrary power. Expectations of personal advantages through the favor of royalty did not enter into the formation of his opinions. It was monarchy as modified and re-established by the Revolution of 1688 that was the object of Hamilton's preference. In the same speech from which I have just quoted he gave with manly candor his reasons for believing that the English model presented the fairest chance of any system then extant for the selection of a good executive. He contrasted the probable advantages in this regard between a chief magistrate selected, in the first instance, by Parliament and continued by descent, and one elected by the people for a limited period, and frankly argued in favor of the former. His opinion was mainly controlled by that want of confidence in the capacity of the people for self-government which he never hesitated to acknowledge, and which, as I have said, lay at the foundation of his political views. But it was not the king, as such, that he sought after, but a competent chief magistrate; and he advocated monarchical institutions only because he thought them the most likely to produce such an one. In a speech delivered by him in the New York Ratification Convention, which bears the stamp of his own revision, he said, "It is an undeniable truth that the body of the people in every country sincerely desire its prosperity, but it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government." He never exhibited a preference for monarchy in the abstract; no one ever heard him express a partiality for or an attachment to this or that royal family save as their acts were more or less meritorious, and I cannot think that such considerations ever swayed his course. He treated the question not as one of personal preference, but as one involving the chances of good government. In deciding this question he may have erred, and few in our country can deny or seriously doubt that he did greatly err; but it was a question that he had a right to entertain, more especially at the formation of the Government, and one in respect to which, his opinion having been honestly formed, error could not fairly be made the subject of reproach.