America’s unresolved tension between Hamiltonian pursuit of political development and Madisonian balance of interests is corruption: ‘maldistribution of federal resources to vested interests’. Hamilton, seeking to address the young country’s evident political needs, sought to tap economic resources by appealing to elite self-interest. Madison wrote (in Federalist 10?) that ‘a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties’. Madison thought of government as a referee among domestic citizenry, Hamilton as a coach facing rival nations.

America is Hamiltonian, in part because Madison and Jefferson never development an alternate dynamic. The trouble is politics remains Madisonian: national powers are inherently weak, and parochial interests must be mollified. To compound, economic ends have been supplemented by sociopolitical goals (e.g., environmentalism, egalitarianism) which add another layer of faction.