Jefferson vs. Hamilton, Again

During the French Revolutionary War, President George Washington asks Jefferson’s advice on whether the US ought to respect its treaties with the French government, which was a monarchy prior to the revolution and months after the clean divorcement of the head of King Charles XVI from his body. The request is sensible, for the government of France, formerly monocratic, promises after the revolution to be a republic, modeled in many respects after the jejune US government.

It comes as no surprise that Hamilton, an Anglophile, and Jefferson, a Francophile, have different arguments and different conclusions. In this essay, I critically examine those arguments as depicted by Jefferson in his Opinion on the Treaties to France (28 Apr. 1793), some 5000 words written to President Washington on injunction of President Washington. The disagreements between the two secretaries, once again, show a clash of two titanic intellects—a clash of large figures reminiscent, to mavens of boxing, of the classic Ali-Frazier bouts. Jefferson shows himself to be a philosophical idealist (the showman Ali); Hamilton, an above-board realist (the hard-hitting Frazier).

Jefferson opens with the question to be answered: “Whether the US. have a right to renounce their treaties with France, or to hold them suspended till the government of that country shall be established?”

Jefferson begins with Hamilton’s argument, which he thus captures:

France was a monarchy when we entered into treaties with it: but it has now declared itself a Republic, & is preparing a Republican form of government. As it may issue in a Republic, or a Military despotism, or in something else which may possibly render our alliance with it dangerous to ourselves, we have a right of election to renounce the treaty altogether, or to declare it suspended till their government shall be settled in the form it is ultimately to take; and then we may judge whether we will call the treaties into operation again, or declare them forever null. Having that right of election now, if we receive their minister without any qualifications, it will amount to an act of election to continue the treaties; & if the change they are undergoing should issue in a form which should bring danger on us, we shall not be then free to renounce them. To elect to continue them is equivalent to the making a new treaty at this time in the same form, that is to say, with a clause of guarantee; but to make a treaty with a clause of guarantee, during a war, is a departure from neutrality, and would make us associates in the war. To renounce or suspend the treaties therefore is a necessary act of neutrality.

 The argument is thus broken down, with numbers in parentheses indicative of the premise(s) from which a conclusion follows:

1. France was a monarchy when we made our treaties.
2. France now declares itself a republic.
3. Declaration notwithstanding, its future is unclear.
4. So, it might eventuate in a government hostile to us (3).
5. So, we have the right of suspension or nullification of the treaties (4).
6. If we receive their ambassador, “it will amount to an act of election to continue the treaties.”
7. So, “if the change they are undergoing should issue in a form which should bring danger on us, we shall not be then free to renounce them” (6).
8. “To elect to continue them is equivalent to the making a new treaty at this time in the same form, that is to say, with a clause of guarantee.”
9. “To make a treaty with a clause of guarantee, during a war, is a departure from neutrality.”
10. Departure from neutrality “makes us associates in the war.”
11. Therefore, “to renounce or suspend the treaties … is a necessary act of neutrality” (7–10).

To Hamilton’s remonstrance on behalf of suspension or renunciation, Jefferson proffers a counter-remonstrance:

I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation, as free to transact their common concerns by any agents they think proper, to change these agents individually, or the organisation of them in form or function whenever they please: that all the acts done by those agents under the authority of the nation, are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them, & enure to their use, & can in no wise be annulled or affected by any change in the form of the government, or of the persons administering it. Consequently the Treaties between the U S. and France, were not treaties between the U S. & Louis Capet, but between the two nations of America & France, and the nations remaining in existance, tho’ both of them have since changed their forms of government, the treaties are not annulled by these changes.

Jefferson’s counter is thus summed:

1. The authority of a nation is the people: i.e., the nation is the people.
2. The people transact their concerns through chosen agents.
3. So, the people can change or rearrange their agents as they deem fit (1 & 2).
4. So, the acts of the agents (the government) are the acts of the people (1 & 2).
5. When there is a change in the government (the agents), the people have not changed.
6. So, the government has not changed, but only the form of government has changed (1 & 5).
7. So, treaties between France and US are between the people of France and the US, not between Louis Capet and the US Congress (6).

Who gets the better of the exchange?

It is first noteworthy to realize that Hamilton’s argument is political and based on the exigencies of political circumstances—e.g., possibility of imminent danger to the US if France turns despotic—while Jefferson’s argument is philosophical and is immune to circumstances.

In his attempt to debunk Hamilton’s argument, Jefferson focuses on the imminency of danger and gives many arguments to show that there is little concern for danger—of appearance of “a Rawhead & bloody-bones in the dark.” It is danger, counters Jefferson, that we fear, not possibility of danger. Space prohibits an analysis of those arguments. Yet in challenging Hamilton’s ultimate conclusion—that “to renounce or suspend the treaties … is a necessary act of neutrality” or that failure to suspend or renounce the treaties shows partiality—he is quick to note the illegitimacy of premise 6: “If we receive their ambassador, ‘it will amount to an act of election to continue the treaties.’” Jefferson counters:

The reception of the Minister at all (in favor of which Colo. Hamilton has given his opinion, tho reluctantly as he confessed) is an acknolegement of the legitimacy of their government: and if the qualifications meditated are to deny that legitimacy, it will be a curious compound which is to admit & deny the same thing. But I deny that the reception of a Minister has any thing to do with the treaties.

If there is no reason to believe that reception of the French ambassador is tantamount to continuing extant treaties in times of uncertainty. Jefferson has shown the uncogency of Hamilton’s argument.

What, however, of Jefferson’s argument?

When we return to that argument, something seems awry. Jefferson goes astray with his first premise: that the authority of a nation is the people of that nation. That is a premise to which all dyed-in-the-wool adherents of Jefferson-styled republican governments will assent but it is a premise that only Jefferson-styled republics (JSRs) will assent. Premise one is equivalent to asserting normatively that only JSRs are legitimate, but not all political theorists are normativists (concerning themselves with ideal scenarios or what ought to be the case). Many like Hamilton are realists (concerning themselves with what is the case). Premise 1 ought to read—and here I become a philosophical normativist!—that the authority of a JSR is the people. Once we correct Jefferson, we see that statement 6 does not follow from statements 1 and 5. Jefferson’s argument here:

1. The authority of a nation is the people: i.e., the nation is the people.
2. When there is a change in the government (the agents), the people have not changed.
3. So, the government has not changed, but only the form of government has changed (1 & 5).

What Jefferson ought to have said:

1. The authority of a JSR is the people: i.e., the nation is the people.
2. When there is a change in the government (the agents) of a JSR, the people have not changed.
3. So, the government of a JSR has not changed, but only the form of government has changed (1 & 5).

Jefferson’s paralogism, his failed argument, comes out when he later appeals to political theorists Grotius, Pufendorf, Wolf, and Vattel for support. Note that all qualify their remarks that a change of government does not change prior obligations of treaties between nations only when the either the nations are republics or when the people are truly free. All recognize, as did Plato and Aristotle millennia ago—the existence of despotic governments. Despotic governments may not be people-friendly, but they are no less real that people-friendly governments.

• Grotius: “Hither must be referred the common question, concerning personal & real treaties. If indeed it be with a free people, there can be no doubt but that the engagement is in it’s nature real, because the subject is a permanent thing, and even tho the government of the state be changed into a Kingdom, the treaty remains, because the same body remains, tho’ the head is changed, and, as we have before said, the government which is exercised by a King, does not cease to be the government of the people.”
• Pufendorf: “It is certain that every alliance made with a republic, is real, & continues consequently to the term agreed on by the treaty, altho’ the magistrates who concluded it be dead before, or that the form of government is changed, even from a democracy to a monarchy: for in this case the people does not cease to be the same, and the King, in the case supposed, being established by the consent of the people, who abolished the republican government, is understood to accept the crown with all the engagements which the people conferring it had contracted, as being free & governing themselves.”
• Wolf: “The alliance which is made with a free people, or with a popular government, is a real alliance; and as when the form of government changes, the people remains the same, (for it is the association which forms the people, & not the manner of administering the government) this alliance subsists, tho’ the form of government changes, unless, as is evident, the reason of the alliance was particular to the popular state.”
• Vattel: ‘The same question presents itself in real alliances, & in general on every alliance made with a state, & not in particular with a King for the defense of his person. We ought without doubt to defend our ally against all invasion, against all foreign violence, & even against rebel subjects. We ought in like manner to defend a republic against the enterprises of an oppressor of the public liberty. But we ought to recollect that we are the ally of the state, or of the nation, & not it’s judge. If the nation has deposed it’s King in form, if the people of a republic has driven away it’s magistrates, & have established themselves free, or if they have acknoleged the authority of an usurper, whether expressly or tacitly, to oppose these domestic arrangements, to contest their justice or validity, would be to meddle with the government of the nation, & to do it an injury. The ally remains the ally of the state, notwithstanding the change which has taken place. But if this change renders the alliance useless, dangerous or disagreeable to it, it is free to renounce it. For it may say with truth, that it would not have allied itself with this nation, if it had been under the present form of it’s government.’

In sum:

• Hamilton goes awry in exaggerating the reality of potential dangers in honoring treaties with France: that reception of the ambassador of France will amount to a breach of US neutrality in their battles in Europe. That amount to tacit agreement of renewal of existing treaties and leads to the possibility of large danger for the US.
• Jefferson is guilty of slanting—of beginning with a premise whose truth is question-begging: that any nation not grounded in the authority of the people is not a nation. His conclusion, therefore, that all existing treating between nations, even when one nation has a change of government, are still binding.

I end by ingeminating a point I have often made about Jefferson’s disagreements with Hamilton concerning affairs of state. The two never, or seldom, argue on the same ground, for Hamilton is always a political realist; Jefferson ever (or at least often) a political idealist or philosopher.

M. Andrew Holowchak

M. Andrew Holowchak, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy and history, who taught at institutions such as University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, and Rutgers University, Camden. He is editor of Journal of Thomas Jefferson and His Time and author/editor of over 65 books and over 275 published essays on topics such as ethics, ancient philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, and critical thinking. His current research is on Thomas Jefferson—he is acknowledged by many scholars to be the world’s foremost authority—and has published over 200 essays and 27 books on Jefferson. He also has numerous videos and a weekly series with Donna Vitak, titled “One Work, Five Questions,” on Jefferson on YouTube. He can be reached at [email protected]. 

View all posts