Trump's Very Hamiltonian Presidency
The logical conclusion of Alexander Hamilton's vision for a unified executive is Donald Trump.
Alexander Hamilton is enjoying a long afterlife. He has a hit musical and an appreciating reputation as the Founding Father of American finance and a strong state to hold it all together. What’s less comfortable to admit is that he was also the prophet of the presidency we live with now: unilateral, swollen with economic power, and edging toward an elective monarchy. Hamilton called this an “energetic executive.” Donald Trump’s second term shows us what that actually looks like in practice.
In Federalist No. 70, Hamilton argued for unity in the executive — one president, not a council. A single leader meant energy, decisiveness, accountability. No diffusion of blame, no paralysis in crisis. In today’s corporate jargon, we’d call this “streamlining” — the allure of simplicity that stumble into autocracy premised on misplaced public expectations of the president in a democracy.
As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton pressed for more than structure. He designed an economic order that put the presidency at the center of finance: assumption of state debts, a national bank, protective tariffs, industrial promotion. The idea was simple — concentrate power to give the new nation coherence. In foreign affairs, he insisted the president held broad authority as the nation’s face abroad. In his Pacificus letters, he defended Washington’s power to declare neutrality between France and Britain, arguing this flowed naturally from the executive’s role. He came around to the notion of what we now call the “unified executive” — presidential removal power so subordinates would remain extensions of the president. One energetic president, accountable to the people, would be both strong and safe.
Fast forward to Trump’s second term and Hamilton’s design leaps out. First is economic unilateralism. Hamilton built a centralized financial state. Trump wielded it with abandon, levying tariffs under Section 232 and more recently the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), redirecting subsidies, threatening industries by decree, and reshaping supply chains. More recently, he has unilaterally invested federal money in companies like Nvidia and Intel. All follow from powers Hamilton urged be vested in the executive — revealing the flaws Jefferson saw in Article II, not to mention those of the pseudonymous Anti-Federalist who were skeptics of the Constitution.
The continuity with Hamilton’s idea of concentrated economic authority is plain. The difference is Hamilton’s system-building versus Trump’s transactional leverage. The second echo is unity of command. Hamilton argued accountability required a single president. Trump pursued unity as loyalty to him. Officials who resisted were dismissed, acting appointments proliferated to keep subordinates dependent. What Hamilton imagined as unity for responsibility became, under Trump, unity for obedience. The logic of concentration was the same.
The parallels continue with Trump’s seizure of Washington to combat local crime, and now his threats to do the same in the states. In Federalist No. 28, Hamilton wrote that the federal government must be able to use military force inside the states “if the representatives of the people betray their constituents.” Defenders say he meant insurrections, not ordinary crime, in a fragile republic fresh from Shays’ Rebellion. But even then, his formulation was expansive. He built in no limiting principle because his vision had no limits. Shays’ farmers became Whiskey rebels, then strikers, then civil rights marchers, then “rioters,” now “criminals.” His point may have been understandable in the 1790s, but it planted the seed for presidents to convert rebellion into crime and crime into justification for centralization.
It would be too easy to stop with Trump. Hamilton’s vision has fed the imperial presidency for two centuries, across parties and ideologies. His defense of executive foreign policy power metastasized into interventionism abroad and unilateral and perpetually authorized wars. Presidents now launch bombing campaigns, drone strikes, and covert operations with barely a nod to Congress. “Commander-in-chief” has swallowed the separation of powers. Hamilton’s “energy” in crisis has become a standing invitation to rule by proclamation. And the single executive doesn’t just mean unity of action; it means one human face for national identity. The executive isn’t just administering government — he’s embodying “the people.”
After Trump, there’s little reason to think the United States will depart from Hamilton’s illiberal vision. Technocrats on the left, loudly critical of Trump’s abuses, may build on his precedents. Why democratize tariff authority or unwind federal stakes in private firms if they can be used for industrial policy or climate goals? Why surrender emergency powers when the emergency is “the planet”? The methods may be denounced when wielded by a demagogue but embraced when wielded for “the right ends.”
As I’ve written, the problem is less the man than the office. Hamilton is still praised as farsighted, but his true legacy should be revised as much darker. Madison and Jefferson feared an elective monarchy; Hamilton built the case for one. He deserves demotion — not as the father of modern America, but as the visionary for American-style authoritarianism.
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