Is there any way to pretty accurately determine what Hamilton, Madison, and Jay would think about certain issues today without being anachronistic?

by AnakinKardashian
TRB1783

In my opinion, no. The past is the past, and those men lived in a society very different than our own. Even for men that opposed slavery like Hamilton, mixed-race relationships would probably still be pretty shocking. They would likely be shocked by the size and cost of our government, but it's impossible to know if they would oppose the social safety net demanded by an industrial/post-industrial society.

In short, because their frame of reference is so different, asking simple yes/no questions about modern political issues would probably be pretty useless without also bringing them up to speed on the intervening social, economic, and political transformations.