Politics & Power Quote by Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton is doing something more audacious than defending borrowing: he is trying to make debt feel like discipline. In the early republic, “debt” carried the stink of moral failure and British-style corruption. Hamilton flips the script. If it is “not excessive” is the tell - a carefully placed governor that makes the claim sound sober rather than reckless. The phrase “national blessing” is even craftier: it borrows the language of providence to sanctify a policy choice, recasting finance as nation-building.

The intent is practical and political. Hamilton wanted the federal government to assume state Revolutionary War debts and fund them reliably. A manageable national debt meant regular tax revenue, a credible Treasury, and government securities that investors could trust. Once people with money literally owned a stake in federal solvency, the Union stops being an abstract idea and becomes an asset worth protecting. Debt, in this framing, is glue.

The subtext is about power. Hamilton is arguing for a strong central state in a country suspicious of centralized authority. Debt becomes a tool to concentrate fiscal capacity in the federal government, normalize taxation, and build a relationship with merchants and financiers. It’s also a signal to foreign powers: a nation that can borrow and repay is a nation that will endure.

The line still needles American politics because it admits what civic mythology resists: modern states run on credit, and credit is a kind of trust you can quantify.