Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART I THE COMING OF NECESSITY
- PART II BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN
- PART III SEIZING THE HELM
- PART IV INFORMAL ADVISER TO THE PRINCE
- PART V A PRINCE IN HIS OWN RIGHT?
- 16 Hamilton and Adams: The Background
- 17 Hamilton’s “Grand Plan”
- 18 Hamilton and His Army, Part One, 1797–1798
- 19 Hamilton and His Army, Part Two, 1798–1799
- 20 Killing Two Birds with One Stone, 1799
- PART VI THE LESSER OF EVILS
- Conclusion: Hamilton Then and Now
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
18 - Hamilton and His Army, Part One, 1797–1798
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART I THE COMING OF NECESSITY
- PART II BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN
- PART III SEIZING THE HELM
- PART IV INFORMAL ADVISER TO THE PRINCE
- PART V A PRINCE IN HIS OWN RIGHT?
- 16 Hamilton and Adams: The Background
- 17 Hamilton’s “Grand Plan”
- 18 Hamilton and His Army, Part One, 1797–1798
- 19 Hamilton and His Army, Part Two, 1798–1799
- 20 Killing Two Birds with One Stone, 1799
- PART VI THE LESSER OF EVILS
- Conclusion: Hamilton Then and Now
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Machiavelli’s supreme example of severe and stirring leadership was Titus Manlius. In 340 b.c., Titus and his fellow consul commanded the Roman army in what Machiavelli called the most important battle in the city’s early history. Facing a Latin force of identical size, training, and determination, whose victory would have meant Rome’s enslavement, Titus instilled a decisive extra degree of resolve and discipline in his troops by having his own son decapitated for disobeying his orders. (The son had engaged in unauthorized single combat.) Titus’s harsh standards served to restore old virtù and breathe new life into original principles – for Machiavelli a prerequisite of republican vitality and longevity. Though revered for his character, Titus was not a popular general and therefore not in a position to use the army for private purposes. His extraordinary reputation rested, finally, on the fact that he had continually renewed it through decisive action at different stages in his life.
From the Romans, Machiavelli acquired a preference for brief, intense wars that would help to pay for themselves through the spoils they provided. He believed that it was better to invade than to be invaded: “he who assaults comes with greater spirit than he who waits; moreover, he takes away many advantages from the enemy.” And it was better to obtain territory by force than by money: “things acquired with gold, one doesn’t know how to defend with iron.” A military leader, moreover, with a hastily improvised force “who sees that for lack of funds or friends the army cannot be held together for long, is mad not to try his luck before it falls apart: waiting he will surely lose, trying he could win.” As Machiavelli memorably put it:
it is better to be impetuous than respecting, because fortune is a woman, and to hold her down, it is necessary to beat and jolt her. She more often lets herself be won over by those who do this than those who proceed coldly; and as a woman, she is always a friend of the young, because they are less respectful, more ferocious, and command her with greater audacity.
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- Information
- American MachiavelliAlexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy, pp. 213 - 223Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004