CHAPTER ONE Alexander Hamilton and the Language of Political Science written “[In] political relations, we can observe changes that are sometimes very rapid . . . however, the history of systems of values does not display sudden. changes.” That sentence instantly brought the history of America to my mind. As we all know, universities are held together by an intricate series of rituals, and this, one might sup- pose, is not unrelated to the continuity of their values. There are other rituals which have survived in a comparable way, and so have, with some interruptions, the intellectual dispositions that are associated with them. Consider for example elections in the United States. They were part of its political life well before the Revolution, to be sure, but it is only with the ratification of the Constitution that the present rhythm of representative democracy began. For two hundred years now Americans have voted for a president every four years and every two in congressional elections. For all citizens the “simple act of vot- ing” is a ritual profoundly reinforced by the deepest “democratic myth”—that even the federal government acts with the “consent of the governed.” Elections are what I should like to call “consequential rituals”; that is, they have very real political effects, not only on the ultimate choice of office holders, but also on their attitudes and con- duct. They have also had an enormous impact upon the most typical forms of social theory, which is now political science and which has I: a striking article about medieval scholars, Georges Duby has This chapter was previously published as “Alexander Hamilton and the Language of Politi cal Science,” in The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 339-55. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.4 CHAPTER ONE all along been a part of the culture of representative democracy. From the first, democracy has required a considerable amount of accurate information. Along with regular elections, Americans also have, as mandated by the Constitution, a national census that is published ev- ery ten years without fail (Act I, sect. 2). And beyond that there is the need, recognized inevitably by any group of freely elected representa- tives, to know as much as possible about their constituencies. ‘The demand for information about essentially the entire white male population, for the suffrage was very broad, even before all property and tax qualifications for voting disappeared in the 1840s, imposed a radical democratization on political inquiry. How to assess the behav- ior and attitudes of the anonymous many who compose the electorate was a wholly novel intellectual task. So new a democratization of in- quiry and values demanded considerable theoretical effort in 1787, and again when it was taken up with new vigor in the 1930s. Among the earliest political thinkers, it has always seemed to me, Alexander Hamilton's voice was the most significant in setting the terms of what is now called political science. For then as now it is the tortuous and long road from the individual voter to the public policies of the federal government that has excited the greatest interest. It obsessed Hamil- ton and it is central to a very substantial part of contemporary survey research, The active, planning, central state of which Hamilton merely dreamed is, to be sure, the political actuality of this science which has its present origins in the 1930s. The sources of authority and its ulti- mate exercise are however in either case the focus of calculation. It is of course true that the mathematical refinement and therefore the accuracy of the framed hypotheses and of their disposition are far greater now than they were in the eighteenth century; nor is the popu- lation being counted and viewed the same. The real puzzle, however, is that—given that the culture, geography, economy, and technology of America have been transformed—the structure of political dis- course has changed so little and that the most characteristic institu- tions of its representative democracy seem so immune to change. The claim that political science is a new enterprise and that it must first imitate and then catch up with the natural sciences is more an expres- sion of a multiplicity of frustrations than a reflection of either the age or the inner structure of America’s typical political science. In fact, the practices of political science are responses to the oldest and most enduring political values and as such prove, if anything, the resilience of at least one of America’s earliest vocabularies. There were two other early forms of social science. The most sig-Alexander Hamilton 5 nificant arose not from the experience of representative democracy, but from the contact of Europeans with native American Indians and imported black slaves. Though such encounters were to be widespread everywhere, they were more enduring and integral to American soci- ety than to any other group of Europeans. Hence the habit of “looking at” and describing these alien peoples along with the fauna and flora of the continent became a settled intellectual style. One need only glance at Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia to recognize the origins and character of American anthropology, so much of it con- cerned with the Indians. That is, however, another avenue of research. For political science Jefferson's friend and Hamilton's collaborator on the Federalist, Madison, is more significant. His great claim is that he began that part of political sociology that flourishes in a pluralistic society and which concerns itself with the formation and interactions of interest groups. The model of these was the multiplicity of Protes- tant sects which Madison knew in his native state and from which he extrapolated the likely behavior of those other groups that regional diversity and a free and growing economy nurtured. This is also a field now cultivated by survey research and it has obvious bearings on every aspect of politics. However, as general public opinion is not identical with specifically electoral opinion, the relationship between the two is itself a subject of scholarly dispute. What is significant here is that major part of political science for which ultimately electoral acts and their implications count most heavily, not the sociology of public atti- tudes generally. Indeed, as an aside, even radical American social sci- entists use elections as their focus of investigations of social change in American history. It is not surprising, because it is impossible to think of American politics apart from the processes of representative democ- racy with its peculiar terms: majority and minority rather than class; local and central, partly because elections are geographically deter- mined, and also because of federalism; voters and candidates; choice and its limits; indifference and activity; habits and issues and parties. And these terms impose themselves whatever the ideological prefer- ences of the observer-speaker may be. Hamilton, as it happened, was not a supporter of the system he helped others to understand, while most of today’s political scientists tend to be ardently loyal to the con- stitutional order. It makes no difference; when you enter a ritual, you are going to speak its language. And that language tells us of a huge premium put upon prediction: for everyone cares about the outcome of elections and that itself stimulates science. The intellectual structure of electoral survey research is not particu-6 CHAPTER ONE larly complicated. It works to establish valid generalizations about voters by correlating increasingly detailed and accurate versions of expressed opinions. Mathematically sophisticated and now computer- ized, it remains basically within the realm of common sense. You test probable abstract statements by correlating the responses of individu- als, the only directly observable indivisible unit: the voter. This is solid Baconian science and it is just what Hamilton wished to develop as well. A known reader of Hume’s essays, and of Montesquieu, he was sure that “history” taught political psychology. According to his friend Chancellor Kent, he contemplated “a full investigation of the history and science of civil government ... and to have the subject treated in reference to past experience upon Lord Bacon's inductive philosophy.”? The questions that such a science would ask were not remote from those of voting studies. They were about the respon- siveness of governments to the governed, the ability of systems to rec- oncile groups of people in conflict, and the governability specifically of the American people.’ It is indeed not surprising that at fifty years of age survey research recognizes itself as a legitimate part of political historiography, intellectually and, as a contributor to the public good, ethically. Unlike Hume, whom history taught that whatever lasted must be good, Hamilton, no less than his successors, was open to novelty and to the constructive efforts of the political will. “The science of politics . «+ like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The ef- ficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or only imperfectly known to the ancients.”* Among, the things that the science of politics had discovered was the efficacy of representative democracy. Moreover, there was something that the very act of establishing a completely new form of government could prove: “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establish- ing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitution on accident and force.” If Americans chose to make the wrong decisions it would be not only a mistake for them, but a “general misfortune of man- kind.” Electoral politics obviously implied a fair degree of volunta- rism; voters made their destiny, especially when they voted for a constitution in the first place. That also introduced an element of un- predictability into politics. Discussing the future of military policies, Hamilton, for instance, admitted that “how the national legislature may reason ... is a thing which neither [his adversaries] nor I canAlexander Hamilton 7 foresce.”* And this again was an invitation to calculation and infer- ences from past to present. Voters changed, representatives had wills. Politics as voting was, in short, a subject for constant investigation, because it was uncertain and yet needed to be grasped. The kind of information that was really needed was psychological. It was taken for granted that both social groups and individual politi cal agents were moved by “ambition, avarice, and vindictiveness.” Of these the first two were the most important, which made political be- havior relatively predictable, at least when the most active political people were involved. Hamilton was not disposed to “view human nature” other than “as it is, without either flattering its virtues or exaggerating its vices.”’ That made him neither anxious, nor exces- sively optimistic. Indeed, “utopian” was a word of scorn in his vocab- ulary.* What really impressed him politically, however, was “(t]he alarming indifference discoverable in the exercise of so valuable a priv- ilege” as voting.” All these observations referred back to known be- havior in the several states. Moreover, this mix of ambition, avarice, and voter indifference was not random in his view. Like everything else it occurred in a setting that was also subject to reasonably accu- rate descriptions. The relevant circumstances were the natural wealth and “genius” of the citizens, the degree of information they possessed, the state of commerce, of acts of industry—and “many more too com- plex, remote or adventitious to admit of particular specification.” This constituted “the wealth of nations” and it was measurable." Apart from voting, politics were in fact highly depersonalized and, indeed, this was necessary for a predictive science of politics. It was also inher- ent in representative democracy, and for Hamilton that was a sign of the durability of the “great” republic. Majorities were aggregates, solid wholes. That in any case was given; there could be no alteration of majority rule. The “fundamental maxim of republican government ... requires that the sense of the majority should prevail” and that “the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs.”"' Major- ity government as such was simply “there,” and it was subject to objec- tive investigation. Like most political scientists Hamilton thought little of the intelli- gence or knowledge of the voters.'? Nevertheless he did not blame them for defects in their conduct. It was always the fault of the candi- dates and of those who misled or failed to present issues properly to the voters. Among distinguished political scientists it was particularly8 CHAPTER ONE V. O. Key who came to emphasize that the quality of voters’ choices depended on the choices that were put before them and articulated for them by candidates. The political science profession's long- standing cri de coeur for a “responsible” two-party system carries the same message. It was Hamilton's as well, especially when he argued, for example, for a single executive, whom voters could easily size up and hold fully responsible for his performance in office." It must be said that recently voters have certainly exercised that real if rather negative power, With all these considerations in mind Harrington had turned to the composition of the majority, given its primacy in the whole political scheme. How do electors behave? Like present-day researchers, Ham- ilton was no formalist; he looked to “social alignments.” Today these are region, ethnicity, religion, and status. Since it was a white Protes- tant electorate, Hamilton looked at region and status, the South and North, as ever also the more agricultural and the more commercial areas, respectively. Status was, however, the chief object of interest. What he saw in New York, his own state, was as follows: “Mechanics and manufacturers will always be inclined, with a few exceptions, to give their votes to merchants in preference to persons of their own professions or trades.” They regarded a merchant who traded in their products as their “patron and friend” and they thought their interests safer in his hands than in their own, What you have here is an account of deferential voting, but without the usual sneer that often accompa- nies such observations. The confidence that small landowners had in great planters, Hamilton went on to observe, was equally strong and again rooted in well-understood self-interest. For the psychology was here not one of class deference, but of calculated self-interest, brought out by capable candidates. “If we take fact as our guide,” in short, we would know that rural voters elected moderate proprietors as a rule. Even more than these statistical constants, what mattered was the confidence that an individual candidate, rich or poor, could arouse in voters,'* That is indeed the argument today of those interested in accurate short-term predictions of voting behavior, which makes sense, given the very low ideological temperature of American voters and their de- clining tendency to identify with one of the two parties.'’ There would, therefore, be candidates who succeed without being members of any of the obvious economic groups: the “learned professions . . . who truly form no distinct interest in society” but who “according toAlexander Hamilton 9 their situation and talents” would be “objects of the confidence and choice” of their communities. By “learned professions” Hamilton meant lawyers. Voters certainly wanted candidates who understood “their feelings and interests,” but to bring diverse groups together to frame policies the latter needed to do more. They needed to amalgam- ate in the legislatures and make governable their very heterogeneous electors. Mediation and brokerage in Hamilton's view were the chief tasks of the “neutral” representatives, those who belonged to the learned professions. ‘What of the candidates? Information was their greatest need if they were to function at all. “Extensive inquiry” would inform a potential or actual representative of “the dispositions and inclinations” of the voters. He must, therefore, whether he was learned or not, be a pri- mary consumer of local political and general psychological knowl- edge, the kind that only scientifically sampled survey research can and did, in fact, yield.'* Hamilton, of course, had special reasons for emphasizing the possi- bility of representatives being equipped with “sufficient knowledge of local circumstances” and also of their ability to forge solid major- ities out of disparate interests. For these were the necessary basis for policy planning, especially for centralized economic and fiscal policy grounded in political economy. Because members of the same class, such as different kinds of artisans, often had more conflicts with each other than with people who might be better off than themselves, but engaged in their own line of production, they voted not in keeping with their social status but with their vertical economic interest group. This was fortunate as it was likely to result in a representative assem- bly whose members could be reconciled for purposes of fiscal policy, not to mention the sort of economic planning Hamilton hoped for, and which the contemporary federal government pursues. Voters, in short, chose not necessarily their own mirror image as individuals or members of groups, but as their more diffuse sense of confidence in an individual dictated. That was, of course, not a quality that could be divorced from issue voting. Especially when the issues were as con- founding as welfare, defense, race relations and, as ever, taxation. There are few papers in the Federalist that can match the two on which I have just drawn. There is in them, as in many others, a larger purpose that must and does inspire the scientific temper in all its mani- festations. That is the necessity to combat nonscientific or prescientific modes of thought, Americans are notoriously, though not, I believe,10 CHAPTER ONE uniquely, addicted to one form of prescientific thinking: conspiratorial explanations of political events. In a brilliant essay Gordon Wood has argued that conspiratorial thinking in this period of American history ‘was a response to a new intellectual climate created by science and naturalistic philosophy generally. There now had to be a causal, natu- ral explanation for all events, social as well as physical. Given the rather frightening and complex events, the appeal to common sense and suspicion that conspiracy offers—not to mention its psychologi- cal gratifications, its certainties and simplicities, it was and is the most obvious answer for those who are remote from scientific modes of thought.'? Among the Anti-Federalists there were indeed many such men who, fearful of the new constitution and terrified by the men who had drawn it up, saw deep plots behind the proposals. Monarchies, standing armies, and generally the connivance of “the wealthy and ‘well-born” were seen as dooming republican freedom. “Where in the name of common sense,” Hamilton exclaimed, “are our fears to end if we cannot trust our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow citizens?” * But he also argued from the analogy of the natural sciences to try to induce his readers to think through complexities, rather than to look for sinister agents.” Above all he wanted to persuade them to try “ra- tional calculation of probabilities,” to think carefully of the “perma- nent causes, moral as well as physical” rather than to abandon science in favor of wild speculation.” The other sources of irrationality in politics were obviously passion and self-interest. In Hamilton's view, these were “utopians, who disdain the admonitions of experimental instruction,” who thought, he claimed, that one could have govern- ment without coercion.*! Clearly there are many far from “utopian” dreamers who also resist the instructions of scientific thought. Prescientific, unscientific, anti- scientific thinking about politics generally and elections specifically flourishes, right and left, north and south. The newspapers and televi- sion often conduct unscientific surveys, and then treat them as solid public opinion though it is often vaguely defined; they regard guess- work, moralism, and ideology as definitive; they use polls to promote candidates and policies. All of these—and of course every form of conspiracy thinking—are rampant forms of semiscience in the United States. It is impossible to. understand the passion for accuracy apart from these essentially nonscientific mind-sets which play at being sci- entific even though they are in truth antiscientific. The refinements of survey research have other sources and intellectual justifications, to beAlexander Hamilton 11 sure, but the spectacle of science abused and misapprehended must always figure as an important one. Exposing fallacies was one of Hamilton's self-set tasks and it remains one for political science. The scientific study of voters—specifically, their psychology, re- sponses to events, and the outcome of elections—has finally a bearing on what survey researchers frankly call the “democratic myth”: that the voter decides. The voter does not care, is ignorant, and generally feels that what he does on election day does not matter. For him it is a civic ritual. Nevertheless, it is psychologically extremely important that representatives and officials think of themselves as dependent upon “grass roots.” They want and need the security of this base which guarantees their place in the structure of representative democ- racy as a whole, To this quandary science has no answer.” It may not need to worry, because its findings are not new politically and indeed have always reflected these realities. Political science need not look back with regret to the formalism of the nineteenth century, which was always subject to challenges, even in its strongest period. There is, in fact, every reason to suppose (especially when one considers Hamilton, writing all that before legal and political institutions had become established) that an informal, demystifying, scientific, and in- dividualizing political science is built into the rituals of electoral poli- tics and is in fact a part of their structure. Those who seek votes will want to know all they can about the voters, and they will always have reason to fear their constituents. There is therefore a built-in impetus to scientific surveying and one that in the end sustains rather than unsettles the whole ritual because far from diminishing, they enhance the sense of its ultimate importance. For looked at historically, scien- tific historiography, which is what survey research knows itself to be by now, is itself an integral part of the complex dialectic of democratic political culture. There is of course one objection of great weight to be made against my argument. Did not the active state of the ancien régime, especially under such statesmen as Colbert and later Turgot, also undertake the most extensive search for social information? And did not at least one of Turgot's younger disciples, the mathematician Condorcet, apply mathematics at once to parliamentary voting after the French Revolu- tion? Is there not a continuity that moves from bureaucratic to par- liamentary social science? I do not, in fact, deny that bureaucratically devised policies are a part of the picture. That is why Hamilton, the first and most significant early American partisan of such policies, is12 CHAPTER ONE so prophetic and why his language re-emerges in the age of the New Deal and after. The uniqueness of his political science as contrasted to the purely policy-oriented studies of bureaucratic governments is that the behavior of the electorate is primary. The science of under- standing the voters is not subservient to policy. The voters count and active public policy only makes them more problematic. Within the context of representative democracy the science of politics remains, in fact, subordinate to the imperatives of “the consent of the governed,” though it becomes vital only when it is confronted by national politics framed and executed far from the arena in which “the simple act of voting” occurs. For political science to be a science, as it now is, it must make the understanding of the individual, elementary phenom- ena its primary goal, and that occurs only within the cultural context of democracy. American political science may well be stimulated by the political demands of an active central state, but it looks first to its ultimate basis in the rituals and habits of two centuries of uninter- rupted (even by a Civil War!) electoral activity. Notes 1. Georges Duby, “The History of Systems of Values,” in The Chivalrous Soci- ety, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 216. 2. William Kent, Memoirs and Letters of James Kent (Boston: Little, Brown & Go., 1898), pp. 327-28. 3. Norman H. Nie, Sidney Verba, and Jolen R. Petrocik, The Changing Ameri- can Voter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 2-13. 4. The Federalist, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961), no. 9, p. 72. 5. Ibid., no. 1, p. 33. 6. Ibid., no. 29, p. 185. 7. Ibid., no. 76, p. 458. 8. Ibid., no. 6, p. 54. 9. Ibid., no. 61, p. 373. 10. Ibid., no. 21, pp. 142-43. 11. Ibid., no. 22, p. 146; no. 71, p. 432. 12, John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), pp. 185-86. 13. V.O. Key, The Responsible Electorate (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966); Federalist, no. 70, pp. 427-31. 14, Federalist, no. 3S, pp. 214-17. 15. E.g,, Stanley Kelley Jr., Interpreting Elections (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1983). 16. Federalist, no. 35, pp. 214-17; no. 36, pp. 217-20. 17. Gotdon S. Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit