Author: Peter Joseph O’Lalor

Publisher: Booksurge Publishing

ISBN: 0615121144

The following review was contributed by: SHELDON (SHELLY) WAXMAN:  Click to view Shelly's reviews

The title tells it all. This pithy book confirms that Alexander Hamilton led a Counter-Revolution in his role as Secretary of The Treasury, as part of Washington’s administration. It takes a while for him to get to the point but when he does, the book takes off. The author states that he does not believe Hamilton subverted the Revolution out of malice but because his economic philosophy was flawed.

I don’t believe it. Hamilton represented New York (read Tory) banking interests and I believe he did what he did for strictly personal reasons. With this difference out in the open, I liked this scholarly venture into the past. It is footnoted extensively—probably overly done, as there are many repeats. And we get to see both sides of the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates.

What struck me, however, was how Hamilton contorted the truth and turned our Nation into a Mercantile (albeit now called Capitalism) Roman type of governmental system. The author quite rightly points to the inevitable fall of such a governmental system—one that is for the civic good, as against what the Revolutionaries believed as the common good. Jefferson stated that Hamilton had corrupted the Constitution and turned “the Revolution upside down”—meaning turning it from a republican form to the centralized behemoth it has become today. Jefferson couldn’t stop it. By the time Jackson got to attempting to change it, the moneyed class had taken over. As a conclusion, the author pines for the return of the Revolutionary spirit to save us from our inevitable fall as an Empire.

As stated by the author: “Who knows what hybrid republic would have been realized if it were not for Hamilton’s intercessions. (Sic) Who knows what might have happened, as with the Civil War, if sectional and political lines had not developed, so as to benefit one group over another. (Sic)”

Certainly, virtue as the first principle has been lost. The answer of educating the young, as suggested by the author, is weak. Only, another revolution will solve the problems we have in my humble opinion, and that “ain’t gonna” happen.

On the downside, the book, although it is a second edition, needs more editing. The language is somewhat contorted and the printing is bad. There are many quotes that are not begun or closed and it is difficult to determine whether it is the author or someone else speaking.