Posted on 06/30/2009 7:32:01 AM PDT by Publius772000
While sitting in the Advanced Placement institute a week ago, the instructor posed a question to the history educators in the room.
Not counting presidents or their wives, he began, who would you consider the five greatest, most influential Americans in history? My mind began to cycle through the most important figures to grace the stage.
My first choice was John Marshall. As the first significant Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he established the principle of judicial review, greatly expanding the power of the Court and making the Constitution, according to Jefferson, a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.
Next, I chose Benjamin Franklin. The exclusion of presidents ruled out many of the Founding Fathers I would have chosen, but Franklin fit the bill. Many historians credit Franklin as the architect of the American ideala merge of the Puritan work ethic and moral compass with the tolerance and reason of Enlightenment philosophy. He served as ambassador to France, securing French support for the Revolution effort, and Postmaster General. Not to mention, he was an accomplished inventor, and many of his creations are still used today in one form or another.
(Excerpt) Read more at theconstitutionalalamo.com ...
You mean the Henry Ford that helped Hitler mechanize his war machine?
Or perhaps you mean the Henry Ford who was quoted in the streets of Germany regarding semitic issues ... often just called “Heinrich”?
Or do you mean the Henry Ford whom Hitler awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle?
Or do you mean the Henry Ford whose picture Hitler kept at his desk?
I’m curious ... which Jew hating Nazi sympathizer did you mean?
Robert Fulton
Henry Bessemer
Most people recognize that the good guys/bad guys view of Hamilton and Jefferson is a cartoon, not the truth.
Jefferson was a wretched governor of Virginia, accused of running away from the British. I don't know how true the rumors were, but certainly Hamilton, who actually served in the military and fought, had a better war record than Jefferson.
Jefferson was also naive about the French Revolution. Maybe he couldn't have saved any lives, but did he have to celebrate revolutionary terror his whole life long.
The embargo, which confined US ships to port, was a foolish and ruinous policy. It hurt American merchants and did nothing to the British or the French.
That John Adams felt affection for Jefferson and took up a correspondence with him is arguably more of a tribute to Adams's good qualities than Jefferson's.
People always say of famous slaveowners that their slaves loved them. That can't have been true in every case. Certainly not in this one slave's case:
Remember that unlike Washington and some other founders, Jefferson didn't free his slaves in his will. Also, given the debts he'd accumulated, his overseers probably worked them very hard.
But of course, I left out the worst thing Jefferson did. After Jefferson left office, rather than work to move the country beyond slavery, he made it an issue of state's rights and Northern persecution of the South. For that alone, he can't be the perfect hero his idolaters claim he is.
To be sure, Jefferson was still a great American -- as Hamilton was.
Thomas Jefferson was our second greatest President, (second to Reagan). Hamilton was a Crown sympathizer who may have been in league with Beckwith when that rogue was British minister to the United States and conspired against American interest.
Benjamin Franklin
Meriwether Lewis & William Clark
Thomas Edison
Samuel Morse
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