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Hamiltons Republic: Readings in the American Democratic Nationalist Tradition
An anthology of writings on Hamiltonian democratic nationalism by such individuals as Alexander Hamilton, Frederick Douglass, and Franklin Roosevelt
345 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1997
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About the author
Michael Lind
38 books76 followersCurrently Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, Michael Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic and writes frequently for The New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of more than a dozen books of history, political journalism, and fiction, including a poetry chapbook, When You Are Someone Else (Aralia Press, 2002), Bluebonnet Girl (Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2003), a children’s book in verse, which won an Oppenheimer Toy Prize for children’s literature, and a narrative poem, The Alamo (Replica Books, 1999), which the Los Angeles Times named as one of the best books of the year. His first collection of verse, Parallel Lives, was published by Etruscan Press in 2007.
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April 17, 2025
Michael Lind’s Hamilton’s Republic is not just a historical or economic text, it is a sweeping, provocative manifesto for reviving the long-buried Hamiltonian tradition of American economic nationalism, civic republicanism, and moral governance. This book reads like both a rediscovery and a warning: that the Jeffersonian ideals of laissez-faire, decentralization, and sacrosanct individualism have failed to meet the demands of an industrial, democratic, and equitable society and that a return to Hamiltonian principles is essential to national renewal.
At the heart of Lind’s critique is the “let-alone” theory, the Jeffersonian dogma that the best government is that which governs least. Through the voice of Henry Cabot Lodge, we are shown how this ideology, embraced in the name of liberty, became a self-destructive force in the industrial era. Lodge denounces laissez-faire as “a too hasty generalization,” born from the historical reaction to monarchies. He exposes its inability to deal with unrestrained competition, low-wage labor, and the erosion of national standards of living.
Lodge does not view tariff policy as merely economic, but as moral and nationalistic. A tariff, he insists, is “a part of a general theory and system of government,” and must serve to “defend wages and standards of living” because “on high wages and high standards of living depends the stability of society.”
One of the most powerful arguments in the book is that tariff protection is not just economic policy, it is civic policy. It ensures a dignified standard of living for laborers, sustains domestic industries, and guards against the exploitation and race-to-the-bottom globalization of labor markets. Lind and Lodge explicitly denounce the idea that Americans must accept lower wages simply because foreign workers accept less.
Lodge goes so far as to call for a “social tariff”, one that defends civilization by making it economically impractical to exploit labor abroad while displacing and impoverishing citizens at home. This vision is deeply moral, patriotic, and grounded in the belief that democracy cannot survive without economic independence for the citizen.
Lind connects Hamiltonianism to its progressive heirs: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Herbert Croly. He draws a throughline from Hamilton’s industrial vision to Lincoln’s moral defense of labor over capital, Roosevelt’s attacks on corporate oligarchy, and Croly’s call for a “Democratic Hamiltonianism.”
Roosevelt, especially, is portrayed as the tribune of the people against special interests. He argues for equality of opportunity, a square deal, national control over corporations, conservation of natural resources, and the graduated income tax, all as extensions of Hamilton’s belief that the state exists to build and serve the nation. Roosevelt’s famous line, “The true conservative is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth”, echoes throughout the book.
Croly, in turn, insists that the Jeffersonian ideal of non-interference must be abandoned, and that reform is meaningless unless it empowers the state to act in the public interest. His core argument: democracy must ensure both political and economic freedom, and that cannot occur under private tyranny or economic dependency.
One of the most revelatory chapters comes from Lind’s inclusion of James Fallows and Friedrich List, who contrast the Anglo-American model of economics (Ricardo, Smith) with the German-American model (List, Hamilton). This comparison is intellectually explosive.
The Anglo-American model is based on laissez-faire, consumer satisfaction, and individualism, assuming that if individual consumers are happy, nations will prosper. The German-American model, however, is producer-centered, nation-first, strategic, and focused on deliberate development, industrial sovereignty, and the moral obligation to uplift the whole society.
As List writes, “a society’s wealth is not what it can buy, but what it can make.” This principle, Lind argues, undergirds the German-American economic school, shared by Hamilton, Lincoln, the Progressives, and East Asian economic planners. It rejects the cosmopolitanism of “free trade for its own sake” and prioritizes national strength and long-term development.
Lind ties everything together with a searing critique of modern neoliberalism and its abandonment of the working class. He argues that the “American oligarchy” resists all attempts to restrict labor-displacing immigration, offshoring, or corporate exploitation. The economic elite’s embrace of global labor markets, he asserts, betrays the Hamiltonian vision of national solidarity.
He revives the “social tariff” as a solution not just for wages, but for democracy itself. Without economic independence and civic dignity, Lind warns, the American republic may not survive.
Hamilton’s Republic offers an uncannily prescient analysis of American political realignment that all but predicts the rise of the MAGA movement and the Democratic Party’s post-1968 immersion into identity politics. Michael Lind traces how the Democratic Party, once a coalition of working-class minorities and Southern whites rooted in New Deal Hamiltonianism, gradually abandoned its economic nationalist base.
Following the Civil Rights Revolution and the New Left’s takeover in the 1970s, the party transformed into a vehicle for cultural progressivism and identity-based politics; prioritizing affirmative action, sexual liberation, and minority rights over class-based economic programs. Lind argues this shift was not a natural extension of the New Deal or Progressive traditions, but a rupture, an elite, academic radicalism divorced from the economic concerns of the broader working class.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party’s realignment with the white South, once the heart of Jeffersonian agrarianism ushered in a populist, anti-elitist movement cloaked in right-wing nationalism. Lind identifies this “yahoo Jeffersonianism” as a volatile fusion of anti-government fervor, nativism, religious fundamentalism, and cultural grievance. The seeds of what would later become Trumpism and the MAGA movement are clearly visible in his portrait of a Republican Party torn between its Hamiltonian heritage (business, infrastructure, strong federal institutions) and a rising populist base animated by resentment toward globalization, immigration, and liberal cultural elites.
Lind memorably forecasts a party on the verge of transformation into a nationalist, isolationist, and culturally reactionary movement. In that sense, Hamilton’s Republic doesn’t just critique America’s lost economic vision, it forewarns the political fragmentation that now defines twenty-first century America.
Hamilton’s Republic is a masterclass in economic, moral, and national philosophy. It is part economic history, part ideological roadmap, and part moral crusade. It dares to say that economic questions are inseparable from democratic survival, and that the fate of a republic depends not just on free speech and fair elections, but on decent wages, public purpose, and national strength.
For readers seeking an alternative to both neoliberal globalization and reactionary populism, Lind offers a third option: a democratic nationalist, producerist, and morally grounded Hamiltonianism fit for a new American century.
Top Quotes
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“A tariff is not merely an economic matter; it is a matter of national survival.”
– Henry Cabot Lodge
“The true conservative insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Reform is meaningless unless the Jeffersonian principle of non-interference is abandoned.”
– Herbert Croly
“The national economy as a whole does not automatically develop; it requires a plan, a push, and central power.”
– Friedrich List
“The new G.O.P. will be strong in the white South, anti-elitist and anti-big business. It will be pro-military but isolationist. It will stand for states' rights against Federal intrusions. It will be a party of protest, for those left behind by economic and social change. It will be a stormy party, combining genuine heartfelt cries for economic justice with demagogic rhetoric on subjects like immigration, culture, religion and trade.”
- Walter Russell Mead
At the heart of Lind’s critique is the “let-alone” theory, the Jeffersonian dogma that the best government is that which governs least. Through the voice of Henry Cabot Lodge, we are shown how this ideology, embraced in the name of liberty, became a self-destructive force in the industrial era. Lodge denounces laissez-faire as “a too hasty generalization,” born from the historical reaction to monarchies. He exposes its inability to deal with unrestrained competition, low-wage labor, and the erosion of national standards of living.
Lodge does not view tariff policy as merely economic, but as moral and nationalistic. A tariff, he insists, is “a part of a general theory and system of government,” and must serve to “defend wages and standards of living” because “on high wages and high standards of living depends the stability of society.”
One of the most powerful arguments in the book is that tariff protection is not just economic policy, it is civic policy. It ensures a dignified standard of living for laborers, sustains domestic industries, and guards against the exploitation and race-to-the-bottom globalization of labor markets. Lind and Lodge explicitly denounce the idea that Americans must accept lower wages simply because foreign workers accept less.
Lodge goes so far as to call for a “social tariff”, one that defends civilization by making it economically impractical to exploit labor abroad while displacing and impoverishing citizens at home. This vision is deeply moral, patriotic, and grounded in the belief that democracy cannot survive without economic independence for the citizen.
Lind connects Hamiltonianism to its progressive heirs: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Herbert Croly. He draws a throughline from Hamilton’s industrial vision to Lincoln’s moral defense of labor over capital, Roosevelt’s attacks on corporate oligarchy, and Croly’s call for a “Democratic Hamiltonianism.”
Roosevelt, especially, is portrayed as the tribune of the people against special interests. He argues for equality of opportunity, a square deal, national control over corporations, conservation of natural resources, and the graduated income tax, all as extensions of Hamilton’s belief that the state exists to build and serve the nation. Roosevelt’s famous line, “The true conservative is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth”, echoes throughout the book.
Croly, in turn, insists that the Jeffersonian ideal of non-interference must be abandoned, and that reform is meaningless unless it empowers the state to act in the public interest. His core argument: democracy must ensure both political and economic freedom, and that cannot occur under private tyranny or economic dependency.
One of the most revelatory chapters comes from Lind’s inclusion of James Fallows and Friedrich List, who contrast the Anglo-American model of economics (Ricardo, Smith) with the German-American model (List, Hamilton). This comparison is intellectually explosive.
The Anglo-American model is based on laissez-faire, consumer satisfaction, and individualism, assuming that if individual consumers are happy, nations will prosper. The German-American model, however, is producer-centered, nation-first, strategic, and focused on deliberate development, industrial sovereignty, and the moral obligation to uplift the whole society.
As List writes, “a society’s wealth is not what it can buy, but what it can make.” This principle, Lind argues, undergirds the German-American economic school, shared by Hamilton, Lincoln, the Progressives, and East Asian economic planners. It rejects the cosmopolitanism of “free trade for its own sake” and prioritizes national strength and long-term development.
Lind ties everything together with a searing critique of modern neoliberalism and its abandonment of the working class. He argues that the “American oligarchy” resists all attempts to restrict labor-displacing immigration, offshoring, or corporate exploitation. The economic elite’s embrace of global labor markets, he asserts, betrays the Hamiltonian vision of national solidarity.
He revives the “social tariff” as a solution not just for wages, but for democracy itself. Without economic independence and civic dignity, Lind warns, the American republic may not survive.
Hamilton’s Republic offers an uncannily prescient analysis of American political realignment that all but predicts the rise of the MAGA movement and the Democratic Party’s post-1968 immersion into identity politics. Michael Lind traces how the Democratic Party, once a coalition of working-class minorities and Southern whites rooted in New Deal Hamiltonianism, gradually abandoned its economic nationalist base.
Following the Civil Rights Revolution and the New Left’s takeover in the 1970s, the party transformed into a vehicle for cultural progressivism and identity-based politics; prioritizing affirmative action, sexual liberation, and minority rights over class-based economic programs. Lind argues this shift was not a natural extension of the New Deal or Progressive traditions, but a rupture, an elite, academic radicalism divorced from the economic concerns of the broader working class.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party’s realignment with the white South, once the heart of Jeffersonian agrarianism ushered in a populist, anti-elitist movement cloaked in right-wing nationalism. Lind identifies this “yahoo Jeffersonianism” as a volatile fusion of anti-government fervor, nativism, religious fundamentalism, and cultural grievance. The seeds of what would later become Trumpism and the MAGA movement are clearly visible in his portrait of a Republican Party torn between its Hamiltonian heritage (business, infrastructure, strong federal institutions) and a rising populist base animated by resentment toward globalization, immigration, and liberal cultural elites.
Lind memorably forecasts a party on the verge of transformation into a nationalist, isolationist, and culturally reactionary movement. In that sense, Hamilton’s Republic doesn’t just critique America’s lost economic vision, it forewarns the political fragmentation that now defines twenty-first century America.
Hamilton’s Republic is a masterclass in economic, moral, and national philosophy. It is part economic history, part ideological roadmap, and part moral crusade. It dares to say that economic questions are inseparable from democratic survival, and that the fate of a republic depends not just on free speech and fair elections, but on decent wages, public purpose, and national strength.
For readers seeking an alternative to both neoliberal globalization and reactionary populism, Lind offers a third option: a democratic nationalist, producerist, and morally grounded Hamiltonianism fit for a new American century.
Top Quotes
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“A tariff is not merely an economic matter; it is a matter of national survival.”
– Henry Cabot Lodge
“The true conservative insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Reform is meaningless unless the Jeffersonian principle of non-interference is abandoned.”
– Herbert Croly
“The national economy as a whole does not automatically develop; it requires a plan, a push, and central power.”
– Friedrich List
“The new G.O.P. will be strong in the white South, anti-elitist and anti-big business. It will be pro-military but isolationist. It will stand for states' rights against Federal intrusions. It will be a party of protest, for those left behind by economic and social change. It will be a stormy party, combining genuine heartfelt cries for economic justice with demagogic rhetoric on subjects like immigration, culture, religion and trade.”
- Walter Russell Mead
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 23, 2017
I am a Hamiltonian.
January 18, 2018
This is a great collection of political reflections, explanations, transformations and revolutions over the course of American history. As the last line states, “Progressive Hamiltonianism is a permanent feature of American political life.” May we see and continue to thank our great leaders of the past.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews