The Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) is an independent, non-partisan organization that promotes constructive debate on contemporary issues in foreign, economic, and national security policy. Seeking to build a national network of outstanding students, faculty, and professionals, AHS sponsors debates at colleges and universities, as well as in major cities, and provides other opportunities for its
members to flourish intellectually and professionally. The Boston College chapter of the AHS exists in this extensive network - with chapters 50+ campuses and members throughout the country - which is united by the following 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.
