Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn and Harvard Kennedy School professor David Gergen say that when Alexander Hamilton argued for impeachment powers, he envisioned a historical moment like the one we are in.
Koehn and Gergen joined Boston Public Radio Tuesday to talk about the history of the impeachment clause as the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump continues.
"[Alexander] Hamilton wanted a strong presidency, but that power had to be checked with a kind of cord of last resort - the impeachment process," Koehn said. "Hamilton wrote about the possibility of demagogues rising in power, and wrote about the impeachment process in his Federalist papers as a way to check demagogues."
"When Ron Chernow says in the Washington Post that Hamilton envisioned someone like Trump, that's a very apt statement," she continued.
"It's remarkable how good a fit the fears of Hamilton were with what we're seeing today," Gergen said.
Koehn is an historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration. Her forthcoming book is "Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times."
David Gergen is a Professor of Public Service at Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he founded the Center for Public Leadership. He’s also a CNN Senior Political Analyst. Previously, he worked for presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton.
