The following, from Federalist #6, demonstrates that the Federalist founding fathers, of which Hamilton was one, understood perfectly the Calvinist concept of total depravity. That is, men are wholly bad - all men. Not only did they understand it but they took it to mean that government must not be built upon the presupposition of the goodwill of ones' neighbors. On the contrary, the government must restrain and limit man's evil nature.
To presume a want of motives for such [internecine war] ... would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony ... would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable [but he goes on to enumerate some of them...].
- love of power
- desire of pre-eminence and dominion
- the jealousy of power
- desire of equality and safety
- rivalships and competitions of commerce
- private passions
- attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading individuals\
[Stop describing present-day U.S.A., Hamilton. I didn't know you were a prophet. Seriously, though - does the following not seem timely?]
...Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interest, have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by MEN as well as the latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are, of course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
...From this summary of what has taken place in other countries, whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?
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