-3-
But the exhibition's heart is not really in explicating
Hamilton's era, but rather in claiming that he created ours,
and it's in trying to make this case that the show goes radically
wrong. The supersized video screens that constitute the domain
of the Present have been widely criticized but insufficiently
understood, as the critiques focus on the medium, not the
message - with which there are two big problems. First, these
"filmed vignettes of modern American life" conjure
up a cartoon Present, utterly abstracted from the complex
realities of our moment. Second, this Present is depicted
as being the "21st-century fulfillment" of the Hero's
(misrepresented) "18th-century plans." Setting aside
for the moment the deeply ahistorical assumptions underlying
the posited causal connections between Past and Present, let's
examine the videos seriatim.
The "National Defense" screen sutures together what
appear to be outtakes from old recruiting films - leisurely
pans over an aircraft carrier flight deck, views of fighter
jets scrambling skyward, languorous shots of paratroopers
tumbling earthward in slo-mo toward . . . where? Vietnam?
Grenada? Inquiring minds wanted to know the provenance. A
whirring helicopter picking up heavily armed GIs carrying
a blanketed bundle (a dead buddy?) set visitors to debating
possible venues - Were those cornfields? Could it be Central
America? All-white graduating cadets throw their hats in the
air - but when was this? Hasn't it been ages since the military
tinctured its Aryan Nation complexion? Whenever. Wherever.
The cumulative effect these detemporalized, decontextualized
images seek to induce seems clear enough: the Modern American
military is a strong, benign, defense-oriented institution.
And -- according to an array of quotes disembedded from their
eighteenth century context - we have Hamilton to thank for
it.
The slightest confrontation with contemporary and historical
realities sends these airy abstractions thudding back to earth.
In the case of the 21st century, it's only necessary to imagine
the effect on N-YHS visitors had the designers inserted a
"vignette" of George Bush strutting about the deck
of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in front of that Mission Accomplished
sign.
Sorting out the eighteenth-century side of the proposed continuum
requires that we recall a few aspects of Hamilton's military
career that didn't make it into the SOLDIER artifact case
across the gallery. Hamilton's service in the revolutionary
army, fighting an imperial occupying power, brought him widespread
acclaim, though already during the war he displayed a worrisome
penchant for using the military for civilian purposes. As
Chernow notes, Washington had to rebuff "Hamilton's misguided
suggestions that he exploit army discontent to goad Congress
into action on public finance," with the General feeling
compelled to instruct his aide that the army was "a dangerous
instrument to play with."
After the war, Washington also expressed dismay at the policy
adopted by the new Society of the Cincinnati-an organization
restricted to the ex-officer corps - of passing membership
down to eldest sons, thus raising the specter of a hereditary
martial nobility. Ben Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson,
John Adams and Sam Adams were equally disturbed. Hamilton
defended hereditability (though not primogeniture, he himself
being a second son) and would go on to head the organization.
Typically, the exhibit displays a Society badge, but offers
no hint of its controversial character.
Hamilton's proposal that the new USA establish a peacetime
army also rang alarm bells with most Americans. Having suffered
occupation by British troops, they remembered (and feared)
the uses to which a "standing army" could be put
(including enforcement of hated laws). Anxieties over possible
misuse of military power mounted when Hamilton, having funded
the Revolutionary War debt, sought new revenue with which
to repay it. Reluctant to further increase tariffs - "especially
since [as Chernow notes] import duties injured seaboard merchants
who were part of Hamilton's social circle and political base
in New York" -- he won passage of an excise tax on wine
and spirits that fell most heavily on western farmers, in
effect transferring wealth from country producers to urban
bondholders. To enforce the law he dispatched squadrons of
tax collectors, and when a revolt against their "bullying
and intrusive" tactics cropped up in Western Pennsylvania
- the Whiskey Rebellion - a massive armed force was sent to
suppress it. To a populace long touchy about taxes this seemed
an ominous development.
Hamilton's taste for military initiatives abroad was equally
disturbing. Certainly he desired an armed force for national
defense, but he was equally keen on using it to project power
overseas. Noting that England had successfully used its fleet
to prosecute wars around the world and to maintain a global
commercial empire, he urged that "if we mean to be a
commercial people... we must endeavour as soon as possible
to have a navy." And in 1798, in line with his truculent
stance toward possible French aggression - a sharp contrast
to his placatory response to English depredations a few years
earlier - Hamilton pushed for and got authority to build a
vast army, with himself and Washington at its head. When Adams,
to Hamilton's great dismay, opted for a diplomatic solution,
Hamilton took up political arms against the President - his
vicious attack helped destroy the Federalist Party and his
own political career - and Abigail Adams, for one, feared
the man she called a "second Bonaparty" might take
up actual arms as well and stage a coup d'etat.
PREVIOUS
PAGE | NEXT
PAGE
