Defending an Energetic Executive

In Federalist 70, Alexander Hamilton (writing as Publius) argued that an energetic executive, as envisioned by Article II of the United States Constitution, was essential to good government. To clinch his argument, he relied on a contrast between theory and practice that seems puzzling at first glance. This chapter elucidates Hamilton’s argument in three parts. It first identifies three strains of eighteenth-century thought concerning the relationship between political theory and political practice. It then examines the specific strain that appears in Federalist 70, with particular attention to its origins and its significance to both Hamilton and his audience. Finally, it uses Hamilton’s defense of an energetic executive as a point of departure to discuss a new development in American political thought—namely, what Americans in the 1780s were beginning to think of as a new, and distinctively American, science of politics, which emphasized practical experience over speculative theory.