Inspired by Alexander Hamilton’s life and work, the AHI was created to help cultivate a genuinely free marketplace of ideas and promote excellence in scholarship through the study of freedom, democracy and capitalism.

In furthering the conversation among individuals, campuses and organizations across the country, the AHI continues to build a legacy where evidence and argument prevail over ideology and cant.

Our 10 Principles

1. The meaning and implications of capitalism, its genesis and impact; the role of markets, money, and banks in economic growth; the importance of the rule of law and property rights in wealth creation.

2. The relations between economic freedom and political freedom; the construction of limited government; the rise of the modern, bureaucratic state and its impact on individuals and communities.

3. The nature and paradox of civil liberty; the compatibility of freedom with equality and of virtue with efficiency.

4. The significance of natural law and natural rights in shaping Western political and legal culture; the common law tradition in the United States and the principles on which it is based.

5. The role of religion in American politics; the moral basis of democracy; separation of church and state.

6. The relation between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the founding and evolution of the United States; notions of limited and divided government; the federal principle.

7. The role of private associations in a free society; their role in mediating between state and individual; the lines between private and public in a democratic society.

8. The nature of republics, democracies, and empires; realism and idealism in the practice of United States foreign policy; the role of the United States in world affairs.

9. Justice as a central concern of government; government as a potential threat to justice.

10. Modes of leadership; rhetoric and communication in the effective performance of leadership.