The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America

by Jeffrey Rosen

The bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happiness shows how the opposing constitutional visions of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton have defined our country for 250 years, influenced presidents from Washington to Trump, and continue to drive the debate over the power of government today.

In The Pursuit of Liberty, bestselling author and president of the National Constitution Center Jeffrey Rosen explores the clashing visions of Hamilton and Jefferson about how to balance liberty and power in a debate that continues to define—and divide—our Jefferson championed states’ rights and individual liberties, while Hamilton pushed for a strong Federal government and a powerful executive. This ongoing tug-of-war has shaped all the pivotal moments in American history, including Abraham Lincoln’s fight against slavery and southern secession, the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Ronald Reagan’s and Donald Trump’s conservative push to shrink the size of the federal government.

Rosen also shows how Hamilton and Jefferson’s disagreement over how to read the Constitution has shaped landmark debates in Congress and the Supreme Court about executive power, from John Marshall’s early battles with Andrew Jackson to the current divisions among the justices on issues from presidential immunity to control over the administrative state.

More than ever, the clash between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals resonates today in our most urgent national debates over the question of whether modern presidents are consolidating power and subverting the Constitution—the very threat to American democracy that both Hamilton and Jefferson were determined to avoid. The Pursuit of Liberty is a compelling history of the opposing forces that have shaped our country since its founding, and the ongoing struggle to define the balance between liberty and power.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Audiobook, Political Science

448 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 21, 2025

Reviews

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton held opposing views on most things, but particularly on how the Constitution should be interpreted. This book starts with brief biographies of the two men. It then traces those opposing views through US history, up to the present day. The book is dry, but I wasn’t bored by it. I am primarily in the Hamilton camp. He held the view that “the greatest threat to the American experiment, was an authoritarian demagogue like Caesar, who might flatter the people, overthrow popular elections, and consolidate power in his own hands.”

My main takeaway from this book is that president’s, judges etc. just claim to be following the views set forth by Jefferson or Hamilton, but they are really just using that as justification for doing what they want to do. (Note that that is not the position of the author of this book. It was only my impression.) My other takeaway is that we have had some truly horrible presidents in this country. Strangely, that gives me some small hope that we may survive the worst of them all.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Dona's Books]

DNF @ 148

Pre-Read Notes:

I have a terrible need right now to know how the current state of the US stacks up against historical expectations for this country's trajectory and that's sort of what this book does.

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) There is a lot of really great information in this text. I think it's a timely book too, as many of our liberties are being threatened. But it's dryer than my bath towel. I get the feeling Rosen couldn't leave anything out. But the result of that is a stuffed text full of unwieldy sentences and paragraphs.

It's not a bad book. History fans who don't mind a very academic style will find great value here.

My Favorite Things:

✔️ "“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits— despotic in his ordinary demeanour— known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty— when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity— to join in the cry of danger to liberty— to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion— to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day— It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’” 7 In particular, Hamilton worried that a demagogic president might take advantage of a foreign policy crisis to refuse to leave office after his term expired." p14 Professional politicians have been scared of the current administration for 350 years.

✔️ "During his lifetime, Jefferson freed only two men— Sally Hemings’s brothers , James and Robert. And in his will, Jefferson freed only three men in addition to his two children: their uncle John Hemings, and their cousins Joseph Fossett and Burwell Colbert. Aside from these five members of the Hemings family, Jefferson did not free any other slaves in his will, including Hemings herself. Jefferson’s neglect separated husbands from wives and parents from children as almost two hundred Black men, women, and children were sold on the auction block after his death to pay his debts." p31-2 I'm having trouble fathoming how a man this evil exists, I mean, my brain is imploding, shouldn't he?

Notes: slavery, gr*pe, torture, captivity, corruption,

Thank you to Jeffrey Rosen, Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of THE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY. All views are mine.

[Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars bumped up to 5. I read and reviewed Jeffrey Rosen’s 2024 “The Pursuit of Happiness” which I thoroughly enjoyed (giving it 4 stars). What I enjoyed in “The Pursuit of Happiness,” Rosen is able to expand and improve upon in “The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.” Here, Rosen chronicles the early history of the feud between two of America’s greatest minds (Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton) and how in the decades after, presidents and justices have applied these men and their ideologies in different and ever changing ways. There may be an era of intense Hamiltonian adoration followed by a resurgence of Jeffersonian thought only to be followed by a counter ideological revolution for Hamilton beliefs, but of a completely different shade than previously. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were complex individuals in life, so it’s fitting that in the decades after their death, their ideologies (sometimes contradictory from what they espoused to what they actually did) would be as equally complex. Different eras and leaders gravitate towards one thinker more than another, but likewise may do differently than they thought. Beliefs on the size of the federal government, the role of national institutions such as banks, and what defines individuality, liberty, and justice are all seen differently by these thinkers successors. Rosen is a literary maestro being able to spotlight the ardent beliefs and the in practice contradictions of most of our presidents while never overwhelming the reader with plodding detail on the minutia of political theory. He also doesn’t interject much on his own interpretations and never dictates which belief is superior to the other, allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions. “The Pursuit of Liberty” is a must read book of 2025 and Rosen certainly has become a go to author of mine.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for this advanced readers copy! “The Pursuit of Liberty” is available for preorder and is out on October 21, 2025.

[C.C. Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hamilton always favored of big Federal government. Jefferson's idealized a small Central government with greater power to the people and more states' rights. This is the basis for every argument between parties into the modern age.

By showing viewpoints the two had and leading them into the modern world, this book perfectly captures what we as American have been arguing over for 250 years.

[Sarah W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton had fundamental disagreements about how the American government should look and function - a battle that has echoes through 250 years of American history. This history provides a firm grounding of the men themselves and the partisan nature of their original debate (which involved plenty of misconstructions of what the other was actually arguing for), and then how this argument has continued through American history. I appreciated this book and the historical nature of the text, which provides context to current American politics.

[Read-n-Bloom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book for American history lovers! It told all about Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on how he believed laws and institutions of government should work and the same for Alexander Hamilton. The book speaks of how our whole system of government revolves around those two concepts and concerns of thoughts from both of these men. Why they believed as they did and why they believed it would be what worked best for our country. I side more with Alexander Hamilton myself and what he thought and believed, but Jefferson’s thoughts on some things were good, as well, but, for me, less than what I thought of Hamilton’s. But if you love history especially American history, I believe, you’ll like reading all about Jefferson and Hamilton. Thank you #NetGalley, the publishers, and author for the ARC for this book for my honest review! My opinion and thoughts are my own.

[Jonathan Crain · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America," Jeffrey Rosen offers an ambitious and informative intellectual history of the United States, tracing the enduring ideological battle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson from the Founding era to the present day. The book's central argument—that this foundational clash over liberty and power explains nearly every major political, constitutional, and social conflict in American history—is both bold and persuasive.

Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a seasoned legal scholar, is uniquely equipped to map this centuries-long contest. His background in constitutional law and public discourse lends authority to his sweeping synthesis, which bridges history, law, and political philosophy. Yet "The Pursuit of Liberty" is no dry academic tome. Rosen employs vivid narrative techniques—opening with the 1791 dinner party where Jefferson first suspected Hamilton of monarchist leanings, chronicling Andrew Jackson's thunderous "Our Union: It must be preserved" toast during the Nullification Crisis, and tracing how modern Supreme Court decisions echo their constitutional quarrels. These specific episodes anchor abstract philosophical debates in concrete historical moments.

The book's greatest strength lies in its unifying interpretive framework. By reconstructing the Hamilton–Jefferson debate "in their own words," Rosen reveals how each generation of Americans has reinterpreted these competing visions: Hamilton's energetic federalism and belief in implied powers versus Jefferson's devotion to local democracy and strict construction. This "productive tension," Rosen argues, is not a flaw in the American system but its saving grace—a dynamic that keeps the republic alive through principled disagreement.

Rosen's research is meticulous and innovative. Drawing from primary sources—letters, debates, court opinions—he constructs a rich dialogue across time, aided by the accessibility of digitized archives. He demonstrates his thesis by connecting disparate conflicts: Hamilton's financial nationalism to the New Deal's "Hamiltonian means for Jeffersonian ends," the Civil War's redefinition of federal power, and the current judiciary's interpretive battles. What distinguishes this work is Rosen's identification of a significant gap in historical literature—that while the idea of American history as a perpetual struggle between these principles was familiar, no single volume had systematically traced these competing threads from the Founding to the present day.

Rosen's thesis comes with inherent challenges. Organizing American history around two opposing philosophical traditions necessarily simplifies a more complex reality. However, Rosen anticipates this criticism by emphasizing how political actors have switched allegiances between these principles as circumstances demanded. He largely avoids partisanship by demonstrating the fluidity of these traditions—how political parties, presidents, and even Supreme Court justices have swapped positions between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian principles when history required it.

By reconstructing how each generation has reinterpreted Hamilton's energetic federalism and Jefferson's devotion to local democracy, he demonstrates that American political vitality depends not on resolving this tension but on sustaining it. The book succeeds both as intellectual history and as a lens for understanding our current moment, when questions about federal power, executive authority, and the threat of demagogues remain as urgent as they were in 1791. His conclusion—that the nation's vitality depends on good-faith debate rather than seeking total victory—offers a necessary framework for an era of political polarization.

This review is of an advance proof provided by Simon & Schuster.

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeffrey Rosen’s “The Pursuit of Liberty” is an intellectually bracing and unexpectedly dramatic tour through 250 years of American politics, framed around the enduring duel between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over how much power a republic can safely wield. Across more than four centuries of narrative time, Rosen argues that their clash over federal authority, economic policy, and constitutional interpretation has become the master key to understanding nearly every major American political conflict since the 1790s. Rosen presents Hamilton as the architect of energetic national power: a robust federal state, implied constitutional powers, centralized finance, and a strong executive able to steer the nation through war, crisis, and modernization. Jefferson, by contrast, emerges as the champion of local democracy, small government, agrarian virtue, and strict constitutional construction, convinced that liberty is most secure when power remains dispersed among states and individuals. The book’s central claim is that this “productive tension” between Hamiltonian energy and Jeffersonian restraint is not a historical accident but the engine that has kept the American experiment both contentious and alive. Rosen is at his best when using vivid set pieces to anchor abstract ideas: the 1791 dinner where Jefferson first suspected Hamilton of monarchical designs, Andrew Jackson’s thunderous “Our Union: It must be preserved” toast during the Nullification Crisis, and modern Supreme Court arguments over presidential power and the administrative state. He tracks how presidents from Lincoln to FDR to Reagan—and even into the Trump era—selectively revived Hamilton or Jefferson to justify battles over slavery, the New Deal, civil rights, deregulation, and executive immunity. Formally, this is more an ambitious work of constitutional and intellectual history than narrative popular history; the prose is clear but sometimes dense, with a bibliography that approaches 16 percent of the book. The payoff is substantial: Rosen offers a clarifying interpretive framework that helps readers map current polarization onto long-running arguments about federal power, economic inequality, and individual rights. For citizens, lawyers, policy professionals, and anyone wrestling with contemporary battles over “government overreach,” the book functions as both historical education and a sobering mirror of the present.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing Academic Analysis Of 250 Years Of American History Through One Central Lens. With about 16% bibliography, Rosen here crafts a well wriiten - if perhaps dryly academic in styling - narrative that serves as both history (particularly of the actual events while Hamilton and Jefferson were both alive) and filter to history (as American history progresses through 2024).

On the actual history end, Rosen is perhaps at his best, seemingly almost bringing us into the rooms where these discussions and their resultant divisions first happen. On the historical filter end, Rosen does a solid job of keeping his filter intact while examining different periods of American history from its earliest days and first insurrections (the Whiskey Rebellion, among others) through the Jan 6, 2021 "insurrection" (used in quotes here because even this text shows how dramatically different they were). And yes, we get stops at Jackson and his Indian Removal, the obligatory Civil War look, several other key points in American history. All through this lens of how various leaders chose to interpret the writings and philosophies of both Hamilton and Jefferson.

Overall it really is a fascinating look that both illuminates key ideas in new ways and works well with other books and their own filters to give a more complete view of both the American Founding and the resultant 250 years of American history. Thus, it is absolutely one that every American should read and consider, and it may well be something that even those outside the United States could learn valuable lessons about either their own countries or perhaps just the American mindset which frequently flips between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals.

Very much recommended.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pursuit of Liberty offers a clear, engaging exploration of the ideological clash between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and how their competing visions still shape American political life. The book presents Hamilton as the architect of a strong central government, energetic executive power, and a modern commercial economy—arguing that national strength depends on financial stability, industrial growth, and federal authority. In contrast, Jefferson is portrayed as the defender of decentralized power, agrarian virtue, and individual freedoms, convinced that liberty is safest when government remains small, local, and restrained. The book frames their conflict—not as a distant historical quarrel—but as the foundational debate over federal power, economic direction, and individual liberty that continues to reverberate today.

The book succinctly shows how the nation has continually reinterpreted these founding figures based on its needs at the time—embracing Hamiltonian strength in times of crisis and Jeffersonian restraint in moments of mistrust toward power. The result is a crisp, insightful narrative that reveals not just who Hamilton and Jefferson were, but why Americans keep returning to them as the twin poles of our political identity.

I am thankful to have received a free advance copy of this book from LibraryThings.

[Terry Ballard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosen is the author of a number of influential books,
including The Pursuit of Happiness and Conversations with RBG. He is the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center. His premise is fairly straightforward, beginning with the account of a working dinner meeting of Washington’s cabinet in New York while the president was
travelling south. It soon became a spirited discussion of the differences between Jefferson and Hamilton on what the government should be all about. Hamilton wanted a strong
central government that used its power to make life better for all citizens. Jefferson preferred states rights and strong trust in the will of the people. Rosen’s point is that this argument played out for centuries. The irony ensued when presidents such as Lincoln, FDR and Clinton invoked the name of Jefferson, while pursuing Hamiltonian goals in their actions in promoting a strong and active federal government.
The book is readable, even in the sections involving economic policy. Cohen maintains that the debate between these two men led to the formation of the two main political parties that control the country today. There is even a chapter at the end that puts this in the context of the Age of Trump. Highly recommended.

[Matt- History on the Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeffery Rosen serves as the Director of the National Constitution Center and is a leading scholar on the evolution of the Constitution. In his upcoming book, The Pursuit of Liberty, Rosen explores the two primary schools of thought that emerged from the debates surrounding the Constitution: Strict Construction, championed by Thomas Jefferson, and Broad Construction, advocated by Alexander Hamilton.

Rosen employs these contrasting perspectives to illuminate the Constitution's evolution and trace the history of our nation. His prose is crisp and engaging, utilizing firsthand accounts and writings from the Founding Fathers, as well as insights from subsequent generations of lawmakers, politicians, and judicial scholars. This approach sheds new light on the ongoing tension between Strict and Broad construction of the Constitution.

The Pursuit of Liberty is a book I have eagerly anticipated a readable history that chronicles the debates and shaping of the Constitution from its inception in 1787 to the present day. In today’s political climate, this book is not only significant but also essential for both avid history buffs and those looking to refresh their understanding of constitutional history.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks Simon & Schuster for my #gifted copy. My thoughts are my own.

A scholarly explanation of Jeffersonian vs Hamiltonian interpretation of the US constitution through US history. Jefferson believed in individual liberties and in states' rights, while Hamilton supported a more powerful federal government. This dynamic has shaped US politics ever since and is still at play today. I found it to be a bit heavy and didn't end up finishing--this is not narrative nonfiction or a light read, but instead meant to be a political and historical analysis by a leader in the field. It was very well-written and does a good job of building his case, and if I wanted to learn more or do a deep dive on the subject this would be the first place I'd go.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative. It's interesting how deep the influence of these two American Patriots goes, through 250 years of politics. This is not a comprehensive history of the United States; rather it's a look at the relevance of Hamilton and Jefferson throughout history. Definitely recommended to those interested in American history.

Thanks to Library Thing, the publisher, and the author for the chance to read this.

[Paul Vance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosen provides an excellent description of the revolutionary period conflict of ideas between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Tying in all three branches of the federal government, he then goes on to use Hamilton & Jefferson's opposing governmental philosophies as the thread to weave together the continuing conflict of these ideologies over the last 250 years up to the (almost) present day. This was a marvelous perspective and a great read!

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding and explaining the importance of Thomas Jefferson’s vs Alexander Hamilton’s ideas on interpreting the Constitution is no easy task but this book tries to do that and follows the concept to present times. Since I am not politically inclined it was difficult to follow at times and I had to reread several parts. I was surprised that the two theories have guided American politics for over 250 years.

[Raymond Woehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for anyone interested in American History. Excellent narrative carrying the same issues throughout the centuries from the founders of our democracy through to the second term if Donald Trump.