America has had a long and interesting relationship with religion throughout much of US History. This country is comparable to that of Germany: A Protestant nation with notably large Roman Catholic and Jewish populations. After all, one of the motivations compelling Europeans to settle here in the 17th century was a desire to practice one’s faith without persecution. Such thinking occurred at a time when the German Reich and much of Europe were fighting wars over religions. It was also the same period when the concept of the Nation emerged after the Thirty-Years War, giving rise to the concept of National Sovereignty. With National Sovereignty came, among other things, the idea that any Nation could define its own relations toward different religions.
There have been various denominations of Protestant Christianity over the centuries, not to mention the appearances of other non-Christian religions unrelated to the more established ones throughout the Eurasian landmass. Whereas immigrants came to America with the faiths of their ancestral homelands, there were always those Americans who ritually switched religions, picking and choosing whatever tenets appealed to their personal spiritual growth. They attended religious services not just because they believed, but because their attendance enabled them to find rapport among others within their communities. It was through those interactions that they grew compelled to voluntarily participate in the American Way of Life as Americans.
However, in an America where there exists neither a Cult of Personality, Secularism, nor a national religion, how does any American reconcile with the multiplicity of different faiths? There was once a time when American Catholics of German ancestry sought to preserve their ancestral ties to the German-speaking world and resented the American Irish Catholics who opposed such efforts. Suspicions continue to be levied against the Mormons, whose history included sparring with the Federal Government and appealing to ideas resonant with an All-American Socialism. New religious groups crop up as there are far more Americans picking and choosing tenets of different religions or finding theological pastimes.
The historical record is adamant that the old Federalist Party understood the importance of religion in encouraging Americans to become more proactive in everyday affairs. The Federalist Nationalism embodied by Hamiltonianism is both pluralist and religious in this sense. It welcomes and accepts Americans of different faiths, encouraging them to work alongside the Federal and State Governments to serve their local communities. There can be a multiplicity of different religions in America. But what keeps religious conflicts from occurring in America is the presence of a shared National Consciousness–what Alexander Hamilton called a common “‘National Sentiment’”–that allows Americans to view each other as Americans rather than Catholics, Protestants, Jews and so forth.
When one’s religious views remain constant, one’s political-economic views will become more fluid. One becomes receptive and accepting of other political-economic views, even going as far as to pick and choose aspects of different Ideologies as long as they fit into a broader Worldview. It definitely accounts for why, in all of my research on the old Federalist Party, there was a healthy variety of viewpoints and perspectives despite being bound to the same Hamiltonian Worldview.
Even so, it is amazing how, despite American perspectives on religious life being increasingly fluid in recent decades, perspectives on political-economic life have become more rigid. There are many Americans who do not stray very far from any one particular aspect of Neoliberalism and the Factions of the Democratic-Republican Party. The plethora of well-known Ideologies within contemporary American political-economic discourse, despite all the partisanship, remain bound to the same Jeffersonian Worldview. It addresses why there are no Ideologies unaffiliated with Jeffersonianism that wield political power in America.
But let us imagine a Hamiltonian conception of America than the Jeffersonian one that already exists for the sake of a philosophical argument. Given the inherent diversity of the American people as a Totality, would it be too difficult to envisage a multiplicity of different Ideologies comparable to how there can be a multiplicity of different religions? Could American political-economic discourse be guided by a variety of non-Liberal Ideologies, all of which driven by Hamiltonianism as a Worldview in itself? Might we be content with finding our answers in how the old Federalist Party treated the issue of mass immigration, which the Democratic-Republican Party has consistently supported for centuries?
Fortunately, Hamilton himself had provided our answers. In The Examination Number VII, he succinctly described why the Party should be concerned about mass immigration, especially when the Jeffersonians in the Democratic-Republican Party were in favor of it. In order to further his plans for the Empire of Liberty, Thomas Jefferson believed that mass immigration would provide the Democratic-Republican Party, in the long term, a sizeable enough population base to dominate economically and militarily the entire world. That implication was made apparent throughout Hamilton’s analysis of Jefferson’s proposal to abolish Naturalization and grant US citizenship to anyone and everyone who willingly emigrates to America for no other purpose than to dream an American Dream rather than contributing to the American Essence:
“The next exceptionable feature in the Message, is the proposal to abolish all restriction on naturalization, arising from a previous residence. In this the President is not more at variance with the concurrent maxims of all commentators on popular governments, than he is with himself. The Notes on Virginia are in direct contradiction to the Message, and furnish us with strong reasons against the policy now recommended. The passage alluded to is here presented: Speaking of the population of America, Mr. Jefferson there says, ‘Here I will beg leave to propose a doubt. The present desire of America, is to produce rapid population, by as great importations of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy?’”
The problem that Hamilton anticipated in allowing mass immigration is that not only does it deprive other nations of their young, talented and experienced, it also runs the risk of subverting the American Essence in the interest of those same nations. Thus, he insisted that America’s population should grow naturally at its own pace:
“They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. Their principles with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us in the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures: but if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?”
Since he was also an immigrant in his youth, Hamilton recognized that immigration has to become something more than just emigrating for economic or financial gain in America. The immigrants’ souls must resonate with American Culture, be willing to contribute to the American Essence, and demonstrate national solidarity with America and its people. He expressed those conclusions in various passages of The Examination Number VIII:
“They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived, or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
“The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils, by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another. In times of great public danger there is always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone weakens the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.”
“But there is a wide difference between closing the door altogether and throwing it entirely open; between a postponement of fourteen years and an immediate admission to all the rights of citizenship. Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of at least a probability of their feeling a real interest in our affairs. A residence of at least five years ought to be required.”
Following Hamilton’s conclusions, we can reapply them to address how Federalist Nationalism would handle the integration of different Theologies or, in this case, foreign Ideologies in Hamiltonian America. In this conception of America, the Federalist American Union is governed by Hamiltonians of several different Ideologies within a functioning Council Democracy. At the same time, there are Americans whose Ideologies come from countries like Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Korea, Japan, and various African and Middle Eastern countries. They too are involved in the Council Democratic process and each of them are trying to get the Federalist American Union to align with their alliances or strategic interests. This is a multipolar world order where America is one among many influential players and a sudden crisis in one part of the world could bring American intervention on a moment’s notice.
Without banning these lesser political parties or resorting to any extralegal and extrajudicial means that may probably be unconstitutional, how should the Federalist Party deal with these Americans? Would it make sense to learn from the lessons of these other Ideologies, all of which have their own Worldviews, and define a more American equivalent? How well do they mesh with prevailing American values, beliefs, and perspectives? Should the Federalist Party consider developing its own equivalents, its own versions more applicable to America as a political, economic and social Reality?
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