SOURCE: "Jefferson, Hamilton, and the Constitution," in Theory and Practice in American Politics, edited by William H. Nelson with Francis L. Loewenham, The University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 13-23.

Malone wrote the definitive biography of Jefferson: the six-volume Jefferson and His Time (1948-1981). In the following essay, he explicates the respective roles of Jefferson and Hamilton in shaping the interpretation of Constitutional law and the role of government.

Jefferson and Hamilton had much to do with interpreting the Constitution, but little or nothing to do with its framing. Had Jefferson been available, he could hardly have failed to be a delegate from his state to the convention which met in Philadelphia in 1787, but he was then minister of the United States at the court of France; he did not return to his own country, in fact, until after the Constitution had been ratified and put into operation with...