Our Principles

The Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, membership organization dedicated to promoting constructive debate on basic principles and contemporary issues in foreign, economic, and national security policy. As we build a national network of outstanding students, faculty, and professionals, we sponsor debates at colleges and universities, as well as in major cities, and provide other opportunities for our members to flourish intellectually, professionally, and personally.

Our members—on 50 campuses, as well as in Miami, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC—are united by basic convictions about the United States and its role in the world.

An appreciation that the world remains a dangerous place in which our power must be exercised with prudence, and where the primary threats to our security come from states that deny freedom to their own people and from non-state actors who embrace hatred and violence;

A firm belief that, time and again, in peace and in war, the ability of the American political system to profit from vigorous public discussion has proved its worth; and that, at this moment in our history, our public discussion of foreign, economic, and national security policy stands very much in need of renewal.

A conviction, rooted in the history of the last century, that the world is a better, safer, and more prosperous place when the United States is willing and able to lead; and a commitment to maintaining the moral authority and material strength on which that leadership rests;

A clear recognition that, in such a world, our true friends and reliable partners are other democratic nations with whom we share an enduring commonality of values, and not simply a temporary convergence of interests;

A measured pride in the success of the American experiment; an understanding that America’s greatness is the result of its commitment to individual liberty, limited government, economic freedom, the rule of law, human dignity, and democracy; and a belief that the fundamental aim of every aspect of our policy, foreign and domestic, must be to defend these principles at home and ultimately to encourage their spread abroad.

Founded in March 2010 by Aaron Friedberg of Princeton University, Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, and Roy Katzovicz of Saddle Point Group LLC, AHS is the farm system for future American leaders, forging in them a new national consensus on principled American primacy. Our campus chapters serve as an entrée into a deep professional network and lifelong work in helping America confront the many challenges it faces abroad.

The Alexander Hamilton Society currently has over 50 chapters on college campuses across the country, in addition to professional chapters in Miami, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. In our first six years alone, we have sponsored over 820 events, with over 40,000 attending. Our impressive alumni already serve in key positions in think-tanks and Congressional offices, and have received numerous prestigious scholarships such as the Rhodes, Truman, Boren, Schwarzman, and Public Interest fellowships.

It has been a half-century since the world has been as chaotic and dangerous as it is today. The current flux in our politics provides a unique opportunity to shape the next generation of leaders as they prepare for public service, academia, law, journalism, or business. The urgency of our current challenges and the enthusiastic response to the Hamilton Society confirm that AHS’s timing and approach are ideal. Engaging citizens from all walks of life and at every stage in their careers, the Alexander Hamilton Society will lay the ground for a new consensus on American foreign policy.

"...[W]e are faced with universities where the conversations have become narrower and narrower, the thinking and writing are diluted, and a deep understanding of the past is being lost. To me, that sums up why the Hamilton Society is so important. We are investing in students so that ten or twenty years from now, we will look back and see that many of the nation’s leaders got their start in a chapter of the Hamilton Society."

- Roger Hertog

Board of Directors

Dan Blumenthal

American Enterprise Institute

Co-Founder & Secretary

Paul V. Lettow

Jones Day

Aaron Friedberg

Princeton University

Co-Founder & President

David McCormick

Bridgewater Associates

Roy Katzovicz

Saddle Point Group, LLC

Co-Founder & Chairman

Arvind Sanger

Geosphere Capital Management, LLC

Laurence Zuriff

Xometry

Treasurer

Roger Hertog

Hertog Foundation

Board Member Emeritus

Board of Advisors

Elliott Abrams Council on Foreign Relations

Gerard Alexander University of Virginia

Ambassador John Bolton American Enterprise Institute

Max Boot Council on Foreign Relations

Jennifer Bryson Center for Islam and Religious Freedom

Ian Brzezinski Atlantic Council

Kara Bue Armitage International

James Carafano The Heritage Foundation

Eliot Cohen Johns Hopkins University, SAIS

Elbridge Colby Center for a New American Security

Ambassador J. D. Crouch U.S.O

Lisa Curtis The Heritage Foundation

Jacqueline Deal Long Term Strategy Group

Michael Doran Hudson Institute

Colin Dueck George Mason University

Mackenzie Eaglen American Enterprise Institute

Thomas Farr Georgetown University

Peter Feaver Duke University

Michael Green Center for Strategic and International Studies

Jakub Grygiel Center for European Policy Analysis

Brian Hook Latitude LLC

John Hannah Foundation for Defense of Democracies

William Inboden University of Texas, Austin

Robert Kagan Brookings Institution

Charles Kesler Claremont McKenna College

James C. Kraska Foreign Policy Research Institute

William Kristol Weekly Standard

Robert Lieber Georgetown University

Thomas Mahnken Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Peter Mansoor The Ohio State University

Henry R. Nau George Washington University

Michael O’Hanlon Brookings Institution

Mackubin Thomas Owens The Institute of World Politics

General David Petraeus KKR Global Institute

Ambassador Mitchell Reiss Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Stanley Renshon City University of New York

Stephen Rosen Harvard University

Michael Rubin American Enterprise Institute

Kori Schake Hoover Institution

Randall Schriver Armitage International

Ambassador Kristen Silverberg Institute of International Finance

Ashley Tellis Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

National Staff

Dr. Gabriel Scheinmann

Executive Director

Cherise Britt

Program Manager

Contact

National Office

Phone: 202.559.7389
Email: Info@hamsoc.org

The Alexander Hamilton Society
11 Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 325
Washington, D.C. 20036
United States of America

If you have questions about your chapters, are interested in starting AHS at your school, or have any other questions, please do not hesitate to call!