Dear Editor,

Over a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a “New Yorker” sandwich, a friend and I were trying to come up with a solution to Schrödinger's cat thought experiment and on a lighter note, an answer to the perpetual, (no longer rhetorical) question:  How did Trump manage to “get-back-in” – with the ancillary question regarding Musk’s name on any ballot?  This was going to take at least another cream soda and another basket of potato chips.

My friend and I are both students of our Constitution and everything “Constitutional” – it was bound to come up: “Hamilton wouldn’t approve, right?” Dave’s tongue firmly tucked in his cheek, responded: “I don’t know.”  

Of the three authors of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton was the most prolific – having written fifty-one (51) of the eighty-five (85) essays. Hamilton’s work as a ‘Founder’, author, and Treasury Secretary to Washington' s administration, is unimpeachable; but we were here to talk about Hamilton’s views on the ‘Executive’ – the executive branch of our government.

There are many folks about the “town square” who wish to remind us of what Hamilton wrote in his Federalist 70 – defending his proposition and argument for a “vigorous Executive.”   He argued vehemently for a “strong and independent” Executive (President) – positing, “A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.”  His arguments for a “strong” Presidency were supported by an inferred logic that “final” policy decisions could not be efficiently and effectively promulgated by a “committee.” 

The recent hand wringing over Hamilton’s essay has come about because of the person who now occupies the White House as “the executive.” Hamilton was right and our Constitution has provided the ‘guardrails’ intended to ensure a continuation of our republic.  

Hamilton, however, did understand the potential perils of a “rogue” executive. He wrote in #70: “Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government…”.  Not even our thoughtful Founders could have foreseen threats to our democracy that would come in the form of a convicted, wretched, ambitious tyrant.

Our protracted conversation did not include a resolution to Schrödinger's thought experiment. In addition, we decided that it would be an incomplete and unfulfilling attempt at trying to determine if our President knows “anything” about Hamilton or any of our Founders, for that matter. Three bottles of cream soda and two baskets of potato chips would serve as our caveat for an incomplete conversation. Even a partial conversation about Hamilton, Madison or Jay is a catharsis.

Rudy Garcia

Gilpin County