The Six-Hour Bomb: When Alexander Hamilton Almost Killed the Constitution

June 18, 1787. Philadelphia. The temperature in the Pennsylvania State House had already hit 85 degrees. Fifty-five men in wool coats and powdered wigs sat trapped in a room with the windows nailed shut and doors guarded for secrecy. The delegates chose privacy over performance so they could speak freely. They had been arguing openly for three weeks about how to build a government. Nothing was working.

Alexander Hamilton finally stood. Brilliant, abrasive, born a b*****d in the Caribbean. He’d watched the Continental Congress dither while soldiers froze at Valley Forge. He’d seen New York burn while thirteen states bickered over tax policy.

He had been quiet, boxed in by his own New York colleagues. Then he said the hard part out loud.

“I have well considered the subject,” he began, “and am convinced that no amendment of the confederation can answer the purpose of a good government, so long as state sovereignties do in any shape exist.”

In short, there could be no fix to the Articles of Confederation, the governing document that existed before the Constitution. Maybe it was the heat. Or frustration from the gridlock. But Hamilton was done with democracy’s inefficiency. State sovereignty would always gridlock national purpose. He rejected the proposals on the table from Virginia and New Jersey and aimed higher.

He spoke for six hours. All day. The room heard a full design for a national government.

What Hamilton wanted: A president elected for life. Absolute veto over all state laws. Power to appoint every governor of every state. Senators serving for life. A government that Madison judged to be suspiciously like the monarchy we had just defeated in a prolonged war.

Madison noted, “Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.”

In the end, America would owe allegiance to no king.

Hamilton’s model pushed far past what most men in the room would accept. Delegates from Connecticut started whispering to each other. The Virginians exchanged glances. By hour three, some walked out. By hour five, even his allies from New York looked uncomfortable. Benjamin Franklin, 81 years old and sitting near the back, closed his eyes, unclear whether from boredom or horror.

No one took it up for a vote. The plan was never seriously considered. His audacity branded him a monarchist to some. The day after, the Convention went back to the real fight over representation. But something had shifted. The center of gravity slid toward Madison’s national vision because Hamilton had stretched the frame.

What happened next tells you how the room felt. Hamilton left Philadelphia on June 29. He drifted in and out. He returned briefly in mid-August and early September. Fleeting presence meant little influence.

In the end, Hamilton signed anyway. He was the only New Yorker who did. On signing day, he told the other delegates: sign it, even if it’s not perfect. The country needs this.

Then he went home and did something remarkable.

New York wouldn’t ratify the Constitution. The state legislature hated it. Too much federal power, they said. Too much risk of tyranny. So Hamilton spent seven months writing essays in New York newspapers under the pen name “Publius.” He wrote fifty-one of them. Madison and John Jay wrote the rest.

These became The Federalist Papers. The most important commentary on the Constitution ever written.

Hamilton’s task was to convince New Yorkers that a strong executive wasn’t a king. That energy in government didn’t mean tyranny. That the Constitution he’d argued against in private was actually the best hope for the republic.

He lost the room in Philadelphia. But he won the argument in the newspapers. New York ratified. Barely. By three votes.

Hamilton defended a Constitution that rejected his vision because he understood something crucial: a flawed republic beats no republic at all.

Read Madison’s notes closely, and you see he understood the logic of the six-hour speech, even though he disagreed. Hamilton believed human passion would wreck any loose confederacy. He feared both gridlocked democracy and entrenched kings. His cure was durability: long terms, firm vetoes, national supremacy over state mischief. He said the British constitution best united strength with security.

Now, the decisive matter. America’s founders did not fear a British king. They feared an American one. They feared what would happen when blind ambition gathered enough levers to bend the entire machine. They wrote a Constitution that mixes energy with friction so no single person or group could run away with the Republic. The secrecy and sealed windows were tools to make that compromise possible, not symbols of elitism.

Hamilton lost the day, but not the argument. His extreme plan made the moderate path possible. But ideas never really die. His left a permanent temptation on the table: trade our Republic’s checks and balances for speed, trade gridlock for efficiency, trade debate for decisiveness. The room said ‘no’ in 1787. That decision created the Republic of the United States of America.

Hamilton lost, but his argument never died.

It waits for every moment when efficiency and allegiance sound better than divided power. That moment is now.

The Shutdown’s Shadow. When the President’s Memo Becomes a Weapon

October 1, 2025. Midnight. The lights went out across Washington. The federal government shut down for the first time in six years. Congress couldn’t pass a budget, and now 2.1 million civilian employees brace for days without pay. National parks lock their gates. Passport offices close. Air traffic controllers work without paychecks. Food stamp checks bounce in rural counties.

This is the machinery of America, seized.

Gridlock isn’t the problem. We have no king. But this shutdown isn’t like others.

Back in Washington, Russell Vought, Project 2025 author and now head of the Office of Management and Budget, directed federal agencies to prepare “reduction in force” notices. To fire employees whose programs don’t match “the President’s priorities.”

Not illegal programs. Not wasteful ones. Programs the president doesn’t like.

It begs the question: Does the power of the purse still reside in Congress, or has it quietly migrated to the White House?

Hamilton wanted the president to veto laws. The room in 1787 said no. This week, we’re watching what happens when Congress gives up.

The shutdown impacts real people, but the crux of the matter is not the impacted programs. It’s not whether the EPA should exist or the CDC deserves its budget. It’s not even whether these firings save money or waste it.

The crux is Hamilton and Madison.

Hamilton wanted a king, or close enough. A president who could veto laws or Congressional policies they found distasteful. Not just unconstitutional laws. Not just illegal spending. Policies the executive simply disagreed with.

Madison said no. He built a system where Congressional power over spending was sacred. Where the president couldn’t just refuse to execute laws because he thought they were bad policy. Where gridlock wasn’t a bug. It was the entire point.

The question in 1787: What happens when the legislature passes something the executive hates? Does the executive get to ignore it? Does one person’s judgment override the people’s representatives?

The Convention answered: No. The president executes the laws. Congress controls the purse. If you don’t like what Congress funds, you veto the bill before it becomes law. Once it’s law, you follow it.

But what we’re watching now is Hamilton’s vision, 238 years late. A shutdown that becomes a veto. An executive using Congressional paralysis as permission to act. Not just managing the crisis. Reshaping government during it.

This isn’t about President Trump. It’s about whether America still believes what Madison wrote in 1787: that ambition must check ambition. That we must divide power to limit power. That even good policy imposed by one person is tyranny.

Hamilton lost that argument. But his idea never died. It keeps popping up, waiting for the right moment.

Nixon’s Impoundment Crisis: When a President Tried to Be His Own Congress

Richard Nixon looked at the federal budget in 1972 and saw waste. Not illegal spending, just programs he thought were stupid. He blamed the Democratic-led party for excess spending. Water treatment plants in Democratic districts. Rural development funds. Clean water grants.

Congress had passed these appropriations. Nixon had even signed some of the bills. But he decided: I’m just not going to spend this money.

He called it “impoundment.” What it meant: The president can refuse to spend money Congress allocated if he thinks it’s a bad idea.

By 1973, Nixon had impounded over eighteen billion dollars, about twenty percent of controllable federal spending. Clean Water Act funds. Highway construction. Housing assistance. Food stamps.

When Congress asked why, his answer was simple: These programs are wasteful. I’m protecting the economy.

Nixon’s position was that the president has inherent constitutional authority to refuse to spend money he deems unnecessary, regardless of what Congress wants.

Congress sued. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nixon in Train v. City of New York. The law said money “shall be allotted,” not “may be” or “at the president’s discretion.” Shall meant shall.

The courts said clearly: The president cannot refuse to spend appropriated funds based on policy disagreement.

Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The law was simple: The president cannot permanently cancel spending that Congress appropriated. To rescind funds, the president had to ask Congress. Both chambers must approve within forty-five days. If they didn’t, the money must be spent.

The president can temporarily delay spending, but must notify Congress. Congress can force immediate release anytime.

The law was bipartisan. Senate Republicans joined Democrats. Because they understood: If a Republican can do this, so can the next Democrat. This guts Congress’s power permanently.

America need not fear a British king. We should fear an American one. The power of the purse is the power of the people. If we surrender it to the executive, we surrender the Republic itself.

Nixon resigned in August 1974. Every president since has operated under the Impoundment Control Act. They’ve all chafed against it. But they generally followed the process: propose rescissions, let Congress vote, spend the money if Congress says.

Until now. We’ve seen this before. Canceling foreign aid, withholding domestic spending, using shutdown authority to cut programs. It’s Nixon’s playbook.

The argument is similar. These programs are wasteful. The president has inherent authority to manage the executive branch. The Impoundment Control Act itself might be unconstitutional.

The question is the same question from 1787:

Does the president execute the laws Congress passes, or does the president decide which laws are worth executing?

Hamilton said the executive should have that discretion. Madison said no, that’s monarchy. Nixon tried to claim it. Congress and the courts said no.

Now we’re asking again.

Congress Built This Trap

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Congress created this problem.

Not President Trump. Not Russell Vought. Congress did this by refusing to do their job.

The Constitution gives Congress one primary measure against executive overreach: the power of the purse. Article I, Section 9. Every dollar spent must be “in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Congress decides what gets funded. The president executes those decisions.

For decades, Congress has punted. They pass continuing resolutions instead of budgets. They kick hard choices down the road. They let government lurch from crisis to crisis because making actual spending decisions requires something they can’t muster: consensus.

And when Congress won’t decide, someone else will.

When the legislature abdicates, the executive fills the space. Not because presidents are tyrants. Because someone has to keep the lights on.

Obama used executive orders when Congress wouldn’t act on immigration. Bush claimed war powers when Congress wouldn’t debate authorization. Every modern president pushes boundaries because Congress left the boundaries undefended.

Both sides have constitutional arguments.

Advocates for presidential power claim the Unitary Executive position. Article II vests “the executive Power” in the President. Executing laws includes discretion over how and when to spend. The president has inherent authority to decline spending he deems wasteful.

Advocates for congressional power claim the Congressional Supremacy position. Article I gives Congress the power of the purse. Appropriations are laws. The president’s duty is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Framers rejected a presidential line-item veto by design.

Both can cite Founders. Both can find judges who agree. This debate only happens because Congress stopped defending its own power.

The Framers created friction deliberately. Madison designed it that way. Ambition to check ambition. The government grinds to a halt when consensus breaks down because gridlock is the price of divided power.

Here’s the originalist paradox: If this executive power existed all along, why didn’t presidents use it for 184 years?

From Washington to Nixon, presidents generally spent what Congress appropriated. Not because they lacked ambition. But because they understood the constitutional bargain.

When Nixon broke that norm, both parties slapped him down. Republicans joined Democrats on the Impoundment Control Act because they understood: If Nixon can do this, so can the next Democrat.

That’s the test. Not “Do I trust this president?” but “Do I trust every future president?” We can’t complain about executive overreach if Congress won’t exercise legislative power.

Do We Trust Every Future President?

Hamilton wanted a king. The room said no. They built a system where Congress could check the executive through the power of the purse.

But that check only works if Congress pulls the lever.

Madison’s design assumed ambition would check ambition. That Congress would jealously guard its powers.

He didn’t account for a Congress that would rather avoid hard votes than defend its constitutional role.

What’s happening now looks like Hamilton’s vision. But Madison’s system didn’t fail. Congress is failing Madison’s system.

The Founders gave us the tools. Congress just refuses to use them.

So, again. Do we trust every future president?

May God bless the United States of America.

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