Alexander Hamilton to Americans: ease it down a notch or two, would you?

I’m all for anger and argumentation in the public square, but the rhetoric I’ve been hearing in the media, or reading in blogs or Facebook, has been disturbing—all these thoughtless globs of bile being thrown this way and that. I don’t think this is anything new, but that doesn't mean that all the vilification going on out there is any less damaging to the efforts to make important decisions about healthcare, the wars, joblessness, and so on.

When I used to teach "Intro to US Government," I had students read a passage from the first Federalist Paper. Under the pseudonym "Publius," Alexander Hamilton began what would become a long series of arguments in favor of replacing the Articles of Confederation with the proposed Constitution coming out of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. I think it’s to all our detriment that so many do not frame arguments in the way that Hamilton suggests in this passage (and I know I've been guilty, too, of doing what Hamilton criticizes here).

Here's my paraphrase of the excerpt, followed by the actual passage in it’s full late-18^th century glory.

. . .Obviously, it would be rather dishonest of me to reject the arguments of my opponents based on the claim that they are acting on pure self-interest or secret ambitions. If we’re honest, we all would admit that it’s possible that even those we despise the most might be motivated by good intentions, and there’s no doubt that most of those who have already spoken out against the new Constitution, and those who will in the future, are well-intentioned, even if I think their fears and suspicions are unjustified. Really, no one, not even those we think of as exceptionally wise or good, is immune to the fears and suspicions that warp the perception of a problem and its solution.

In other words, we know we are principled, so we should also be willing to grant that our opponents may also be principled. Likewise, if we think they, our opponents, must be unreasonably biased or greedy, or whatever, it would unreasonable for us to assume that we, through some miracle, have completely escaped those same bad characteristics.

All those who accept this logic, and I don’t see how anyone could argue against it, should take a step back the next time they think they are, without a doubt, right in an argument.

Besides, there’s a practical reason for delivering criticism and arguments in a moderate, or thoughtful, reasoned way. Demonizing those whom you oppose isn’t going to win any opponents to your side. As is the case in religion, we cannot win people over to the right side of a struggle by turning opponents into evil heretics and persecuting them. You don’t win converts with violence, either physical or rhetorical.

The real passage:

...I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or ambitious views. Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable--the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.