Jefferson, Hamilton, and Main Street

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton held fundamentally different beliefs about the relationship between Federal and local government. Jefferson held that the local government was the primary building block of the nation and that the federal government had the responsibility to protect rights and deal with administrative tasks such as defense and trade that would be difficult for local governments to handle. Hamilton believed that local government should be limited to a more administrative function and that the true center of gravity in government should be the federal government, which he thought would allow the state to be far more stable and effective. 250 years later, and it is clear that Hamilton has functionally won. The federal government controls aspects of life that were not even controlled by any form of government when the debate was raging between Federalists and Democratic Republicans. For the sake of liberty and stable governance, it is important that the federal government loses power both to local government and the people.

Local governments do a far better job of accessing the gifts of democracy than a federal government. The fundamental function of democracy is to translate the will of the people into policy and actions within the bounds of the laws necessary to national stability and the basic entitlements of the citizens. A local government is able to do this task with relative specificity and efficiency. Rather than voting on how infrastructure should be done across the whole country, local governments must make decisions of a much more particular nature. The people are able to express their will and preferences with regards to specific actions in a much more legible way. Consent or lack of it can be seen far more clearly and there is less room for politicians to diverge from their word. It will be difficult for the people to evaluate a president in their infrastructure promises when the whole election cycle never forced them to name a specific action, but a mayor who is elected on the promise to repair a specific bridge will have no such grace given. The informational feedback loop is far faster and more transparent. Local democracy stays focused on specific issues and is better at learning over time than national democracy.

Strong local governments make institutional stability much more accessible than a federal government ruling over a sea of functionally disconnected individuals. Active participation in local government forms responsible citizens more effectively than a federal government does. When citizens have greater agency and responsibility, they have an ability to develop virtue that is not accessible through national elections where their vote matters far or less, and the outcome is more mediated. Jefferson believed that people would be more actively engaged in their communities and governments when they knew that their vote actually mattered. The ability to see mistakes and reverse them more clearly than in the federal government also makes local government more stable. The mistakes that cause deep resentment are often fixed much more easily on the local level. The ability to see cause-and-effect relationships in local government gets rid of the deep hopelessness that many feel when looking at a national government where change is slow and the effects of policy are muddled. A strong local government also adds an extra layer of protection of the people from the federal government. When people directly vote in federal matters, they are siloed into the two opinions of the two parties, but strong local and state governments can push back on the federal government with specificity and force on the issues that matter most. The federal government having strong opposition from different directions will ultimately slow its dissolution.

Hamilton believed in the necessity of a central bank but Jefferson believed that it would transition power away from farmers and ordinary people and put it in the hands of politicians and wealthy merchants. Hamilton approached America as an outsider, seeing regional differences as secondary to the unique environment of the nation as a whole. Jefferson grew up in a Virginia that prided itself on its unique culture and fought for independence both from Britain and the US Federal government. The disagreement over the central bank shows faultlines that still reveal ideological heritage today. Even as federal power continually grows along multiple vectors at the same time, a return to stronger local power has the ability to check the expansion of the central government. Jefferson saw how local government provided a compelling union of freedom and responsibility, and how quickly that could dissolve into tyranny and entitlement when central control was emphasized. Perhaps Hamilton would still hold on to his original vision today, but it is hard to imagine that he would not turn his back on the system he has created.