I am always amazed at the way Repos claim to be the party of Hamilton and Lincoln. There is, of course, no truth in that claim, other than the fact that Lincoln’s party was also called Republican. But Lincoln’s and Hamilton’s beliefs and core tenets are diametrically opposed to those of the modern day Repos, which might as well call itself the Confederate Party.
Hamilton was a chaotic figure. Larger than life, unquestioningly one of the principal "founding fathers", who (along with John Jay and James Madison) wrote the Federalist Papers that were instrumental in obtaining approval of our Constitution from the State of New York, and who was killed while participating in a silly duel with Aaron Burr. He is a complicated figure who had some great ideas, and some not so great.
The current Repo rage for "Federalism" is assertedly based on Hamiltonian thought, but it is anything but. As used today, Federalism refers to the deferral of government power from the federal level to the state and local levels. Hamilton was of the opposite mind, believing in a strong federal government and even advocating that there be no separate state governments, but that the states be run by governors appointed by the federal government. The advocates for state power, rather, were Jefferson and Madison. Hamilton, also, was no free trader. He advocated protectionism abroad and government intervention in support of business at home. And, on civil rights, Lincoln himself characterized Hamilton as among "the most noted anti-slavery men of those times."
So, where do Repos get off on suggesting they bear Hamilton’s philosophical mantle? The answer is succinctly drawn from a statement of another Federalist, John Jay, that "The people who own the country ought to govern it." Hamilton was of a similar mind. Additionally, Hamilton’s Federalist Party advocated policies that tended to favor factories, banking, and trade over agriculture, and thus gained great support in the North East but became increasingly unpopular in the growing Western states. (The modern-day Federalist Society considers James Madison as its patriarch, but Madison has neither the banking cache nor the panache of Hamilton.)
Lincoln, of course, is, in many ways, the father of civil rights. Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence as the underpinning of his political philosophy. He confirmed his dedication to the intentions of the Declaration in his Gettysburg Address, saying famously:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
... It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln redefined republicanism (as in how our nation is governed, not as in what the Repos stand for). We in this country have a republican form of government. Republicanism is not the same as democracy, as republicanism asserts that people have inalienable rights that cannot be voted away by a majority of voters.
That devotion to the notion of inalienable rights (Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness) is the central hallmark of Lincoln’s philosophy. One would be hard-pressed to find any of the sentiments advocated by Lincoln in the modern Repo platform. Liberty? The pursuit of Happiness? I think not. You simply cannot square those inalienable rights with the Repo platform, let alone the policies of the Bush Administration. (And while we’re on the topic, read through the Declaration of Independence, and see if Jefferson’s indictment of the King of Britain doesn’t remind you of some other modern-day, tyrannical figure). Repos do not espouse these values, and to suggest otherwise is hypocrisy.
And, in fact, the utter hypocrisy of the Repo claim to the mantle of Lincoln and Hamilton goes even further. As pretty much anyone with even a passing acquaintance with political history will confirm, in the wake of the Civil War, the South became an almost exclusively Democratic area, precisely because the Republican party was the party of Lincoln, and the South hated Lincoln. It took forty years of thinly-veiled racism (often referred to as the "Southern Strategy") for Repos to win over southern whites. There is simply no way that any party that engages in a "Southern Strategy" or that advocates the very things that Lincoln fought against ("states rights", suppressing minority votes, encouraging a myopic tribalism infused with hate and reeking of the smugness of ignorance).
Brooks contends that Repos should be about reducing barriers that keep ambitious youngsters from succeeding (Brooks deems this the "Hamiltonian Ground"). The idea that the modern-day Republican Party has ever stood for such a notion is ludicrous. Rather, that leveling of the playing field has, since FDR, been the goal of the liberal (as opposed to leftist) wing of the Democratic Party. And Brooks doesn’t quote either Hamilton or Lincoln, because their thoughts simply don’t align with current Repo dogma. Brooks’ sole claim to the Hamilton/Lincoln mantle is that they were once "ambitious young strivers." Silliness.
If you are really interested in leveling the playing field, then you are, by definition, a liberal. And if you’re honest about your desire, you’ll support public education and full access to health care. Because lets face it, those are two things that are really hard to afford for a family that is just barely scraping by. Brooks’ suggestion that modern-day Repos have ever had the leveling of the playing field as a goal simply doesn’t comport with reality. Rather, it is just another example of Brooksian Wistfulness, a longing by certain self-loathing Repos for a return to some noble purpose that has never actually been a part of the Repo platform. So there you are.
