Posted on 02/04/2004 12:00:19 PM PST by HenryLeeII
We Worship Jefferson, But We Have Become Hamilton's America
EVERYBODY WHO IS anybody was there -- at least among those 750 or so Americans who adore Alexander Hamilton. Representatives of the Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr factions also turned out in force.
Two hundred years ago this summer, Hamilton died from a single bullet fired by Burr, then America's vice president, in a duel in Weehawken, N.J. Hamilton's early death, at the age of 47, denied him the opportunity -- or aggravation -- of watching America become a Hamiltonian nation while worshipping the gospel according to Thomas Jefferson.
Now, some Hamiltonians have decided to try to elevate their candidate to the pantheon of great early Americans. Last weekend, scholars, descendents and admirers of Hamilton gathered at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan to kick off their campaign and sing the praises of America's first treasury secretary, who created the blueprint for America's future as a mighty commercial, political and military power.
The conference was sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
But the overflow crowd also had to grapple with the unfortunate fact that many Americans have negative impressions of Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps Ezra Pound expressed their feelings most poetically when he described Hamilton as "the Prime snot in ALL American history."
YET, AS ONE HAMILTON acolyte, Edward Hochman, a Paterson, N.J., lawyer, asked the assembled experts: If Hamilton's vision of America "won" in the long run, "why do we love Jefferson?"
"Because," historian John Steele Gordon responded dryly, "most intellectuals love Jefferson and hate markets, and it's mostly intellectuals who write books."
Even Hamilton's detractors, including members of the Aaron Burr Association, concede that he was a brilliant administrator, who understood financial systems better than anyone else in the country. He laid the groundwork for the nation's banks, commerce and manufacturing, and was rewarded by being pictured on the $10 bill. "We can pay off his debts in 15 years," Thomas Jefferson lamented, "but we can never get rid of his financial system."
Jefferson's vision of America was the opposite of Hamilton's. Jefferson saw America as a loose confederation of agricultural states, while Hamilton envisioned a strong federal government guiding a transition to an urban, industrial nation. He is often called the "father of American capitalism" and the "patron saint of Wall Street."
The Hamiltonians have much historical prejudice to overcome. The real Hamilton was a difficult man, to put it mildly. He was dictatorial, imperious and never understood when to keep his mouth shut. "He set his foot contemptuously to work the treadles of slower minds," wrote an American historian, James Schouler, in 1880.
In the turbulent years of America's political birth, naked ambition for power was considered unseemly, except in the military. After the war, Hamilton, a courageous and skillful soldier, grabbed power aggressively and ruthlessly, indifferent to the trail of enemies he left behind. As a political theorist, he was regarded as a plutocrat and monarchist, partly because he favored a presidency with a life term.
JOHN ADAMS, America's second president, dismissed Hamilton as "the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar" and "the Creole" (Hamilton was born in the West Indies, and his parents never married). George Mason, the Virginia statesman, said Hamilton and his machinations did "us more injury than Great Britain and all her fleets and armies."
"Sure, he made mistakes," concedes Doug Hamilton, a Columbus, Ohio, salesman for IBM, who calculates he is Hamilton's fifth great-grandson. "He was only human. But family is family."
Hamilton had at least one, and probably several, adulterous affairs (Martha Washington named her randy tomcat "Hamilton"). He was also a social snob and dandy. Hamilton, wrote Frederick Scott Oliver in his 1920 biography, "despised . . . people like Jefferson, who dressed ostentatiously in homespun." He "belonged to an age of silk stockings and handsome shoe buckles."
Historians find Hamilton something of a cipher. He didn't have the opportunity, as Adams and Jefferson did in their long retirements, to "spin, if not outright alter, the public record," noted Stephen Knott, author of "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth."
Joanne Freeman, Yale history professor and editor of a collection of Hamilton's writings, agreed that "there are huge voids in our knowledge of him." Consequently, his legacy has been claimed by various political interests. Among his illustrious admirers are George Washington, Jefferson Davis, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding and the French statesman Talleyrand.
At the 1932 Democratic convention, however, Franklin Roosevelt blamed "disciples of Alexander Hamilton" for the Great Depression.
By the time of Hamilton's death, he had dropped out of public life and returned to his law practice. Even so, wrote Frederick Oliver, "the world mourned him with a fervor that is remarkable, considering the speed with which it proceeded to forget him."
A likelier interpretation than Hamilton's is that it was another restrictive phrase, ruling out spending that benefitted special interests. That this phrase was a broad grant of power in an otherwise restrictive clause, and in a section listing numerous specific powers that certainly fall within "general welfare" and are thus redundant under Hamilton's reading, is simply ludicrous.
Jefferson was far more of an elitist than Hamilton ever was.
Unsupported opinion.
Hamilton had to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow not that of others. Hamilton sacrificed a fortune serving the Republic he helped create.
Jeff died broke too, -- so what?
His concern for the elites was only that they be attached to the government as support and to reduce chances of class warfare.
Weird remark -- coupled with your earlier nasty comments about the whiskey makin farmers, -- I'd say your own problems with 'class' are evident here.. You may mirror your boy Alex..
In no way was he for an aristocracy other than one of merit which was Jefferson's preference as well. Hamilton has not been on a pedestal rather he has been slandered and lied about by the Jeffersonian claque for two hundred plus yrs. That is why I defend him.
I see you defending his big gov ideas, by using tar baby tactics on good farmers & 'claques'..
Where does the 10th amendment grant any rights whatsoever?
In States’ Rights and the Union, Forrest McDonald, a Hamiltonian conservative historian, tells the fascinating tale of both secession issues that came up on Jackson’s watch.
In 1830, Georgia threatened to secede over the Cherokee question, and both Alabama and Mississippi indicated they were willing to join Georgia in this move. Gov. Gaines of Georgia was a friend and ally of Jackson, and Jackson’s response was to confront both Congress and John Marshall at the Supreme Court with the modern equivalent of, “Either you boys change your ways, or we’re going to lose three states, and I’m not going to lift a finger to stop them.” A compromise was reached.
By contrast, Jackson saw Calhoun as an enemy because of the cabinet intrigue surrounding the Sally Eaton affair. Jackson’s response to the threat from South Carolina in 1832 was exactly opposite of his response to the Georgia threat of 1830. McDonald points out that all politics were personal with Jackson, and Jackson’s personal anger with Calhoun was the tipping point of the crisis.
There is even a delicious historical irony here. With every fiber of his being, Jackson opposed everything that Hamilton, Webster and Clay stood for, yet in the South Carolina crisis, Jackson not only endorsed Webster’s view of the Union, but undermined everything his administration was supposed to stand for. McDonald documents in detail how Jackson methodically destroyed everything Hamiltonian in his path and pushed relentlessly for a full states’ rights regimen of governance. Yet Jackson took a stance in the South Carolina crisis that violated all the principles he had enunciated in running for office, the principles of the Democratic Party, and in effect created the precedent for the Civil War.
US Congress "We hearby declare War on China."
Massachusetts "We don't want to fight China, we SECEDE."
This is exactly what happened in 1814 at the Hartford Convention. Massachusetts’ economy had been badly damaged by Jefferson’s attempts to stay neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, and Madison’s mishandling of the maritime issues led to a war with Britain that came close to finishing Massachusetts off. Ardor for the War of 1812 had come from the frontier states, not the Eastern seaboard. With the New England economy, based on shipping, in the ditch, a number of New England states met at Hartford to give President Madison an ultimatum: “Either make peace with England, or we’ll secede and make our own separate peace.”
Considering we were at war at the time, Madison would have been within his rights to send the Army to Hartford, arrest the conventioneers, try them for treason and hang the lot of them. Instead, Madison ignored the Hartford Convention’s existence, effectively treating them with Olympian contempt. But there was no statement from the White House that secession was treason. Madison knew that if he asserted this at this particular point in history, he would be escalating a crisis and risking conduct of the war.
Fortunately, Harrison Otis and some wiser heads steered the Hartford Convention in the direction of ineffectualness. Some meaningless resolutions were passed, and everybody grumbled and went home. Thanks to the primitive state of communications, the conventioneers did not know that (a) a peace treaty with Britain bad already been signed in Ghent, and (b) Andrew Jackson had crushed the British garrison at New Orleans. Once this became known, political retribution came swiftly in the 1814 state and congressional elections.
While Texas may be a special case due to its joining the Union as a seperate country none of the other states have any such rights.
Both Vermont and California entered as separate republics, skipping territorial status.
In James Flexner’s biography of Hamilton, he goes into detail as to what happened in Vermont.
Prior to the war, both New York and New Hampshire had made territorial claims on Vermont. New York had given land grants to absentee landlords, while New Hampshire granted the same land to smallholders who farmed them. When New York sent sheriffs to collect the property tax, Vermonters raised citizen militias to harass and repel them. New York and New Hampshire were polishing their muskets and sharpening their swords to determine who would control Vermont when Lexington and Concord took place. Deciding that this was a higher priority, the two colonies chose to table the issue.
After the war, both states were too poor to pursue matters. Vermont meanwhile had written its own constitution and was functioning as an independent republic. Vermont did not attend the Constitutional Convention and did not ratify the document.
All was well until 1790 when Vermont entered negotiations with Governor General Sir Guy Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, in Montreal about entering the Canadian federation. Carleton was the one British general Washington had feared during the Revolution, and Washington correctly viewed a Canadian Vermont as a British salient poking into America like a spear with the point aimed at New York. When Carleton had commanded the British regiments quietly stationed in New York after Yorktown in 1781, Washington’s spies had gotten copies of Carleton’s pleadings with the British War Office to let him restart the war. (The letters are reminiscent of Patton’s pleadings to Eisenhower begging him for a chance to start a war with the Soviet Union.)
Washington had Secretary of State Jefferson quietly send an ultimatum to the Vermont Congress: Either apply for admission as a state, or Washington would send in the Army to conquer Vermont and make it a territory. It was hardball and Vermont folded.
In the aftermath of the Mexican War, California formed the Bear Flag Republic to avoid becoming a political football in the slavery wars in Congress. If there was one thing California did not want, it was to come in as a slave state. In many ways the Bear Flag Republic was a political fiction, but it served its purpose.
The Union was formed by the American PEOPLE not the states which is the misunderstanding underlying all these bogus arguments about a "right" to secede.
Webster embodied the People Argument and Calhoun the State Argument. Webster’s superior oratory had won the debate with Hayne in 1830, creating the “Liberty and Union” speech that a generation of schoolboys was to memorize. But when Calhoun returned to the Senate in 1833, he and Webster went at it on the Senate floor, and the results were quite different. Calhoun had a sharper legal mind than Webster and forced Webster to acknowledge the Concurrent Majority argument that underlay nullification theory. McDonald goes into great detail about this in States’ Rights and the Union. (I strongly recommend this book for anyone who wants to participate in these threads.)
Madison, who was an old man, wrote a series of pamphlets on the issue that were quoted in the newspapers, and he took Webster’s side on all this, arguing that the People, not the States, had formed the Union. Calhoun refused to debate Madison in the press, arguing that Madison was senile. This was unfortunate, because it would have provided a fascinating insight into two of the best legal minds of the age, minus all the oratory.
Let’s put aside the modern argument that the American People of that time did not include women, blacks or Indians. Let’s just concentrate on property requirements. Thanks to the principle of stakeholder franchise, only people who could pay the property tax were allowed to vote in Revolutionary times. Only 10% of the white male population (age 21 or over) could vote. Is this the “American People” that formed the Union? Could Calhoun be right, that the States formed the Union? Or did the People form the Union using the States as their legal agents? It’s all very theological.
Webster’s position defined a Constitutional Theology markedly at difference with half the Framers and half his contemporaries, although John Marshall endorsed it enthusiastically. Madison endorsed Webster’s interpretation, and Lincoln’s victory in the Civil War set it in concrete. But was it really right? Even McDonald has raised questions about this.
Even the Articles of Confederation stated that the Union was perpetual thus, the goal of the Constitution "To form a more perfect Union" would not have been met by allowing the reformed Union (Union 2.0) to be weaker than the earlier version (Union 1.0).
At the beginning of the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton noticed that the Perpetual Union clause had not made it over from the Articles of Confederation, and he immediately raised a red flag. Some older delegates took Hamilton aside and explained that the only way to get the new document past Congress and through ratification was to treat it as an “experiment”. Thus, retaining the Perpetual Union clause would be a deal-breaker. The best way to handle this, they argued, would be to carefully elide the issue and hope for the best. Understanding that the new document itself was the critical deliverable from the Convention, Hamilton agreed and dropped his objections.
In the aftermath of the adoption of the Constitution, secession was one of those things that no gentleman or patriot wanted to talk about. You were correct in stating that the mere prospect was a nightmare. Most thought that Madison’s checks and balances would work and prevent a situation from occurring where one or more states would want to leave.
Yet when Timothy Pickering spent 15 years trying to get Massachusetts and other New England states to secede, no one attempted to use legal means to stop him. Jefferson even wished the New England states well if they wanted to leave, effectively telling them in polite early 19th Century English to not let the door bang their ass on the way out. When the New Englanders tried to build a movement to secede in Hartford in time of war, no one was arrested, tried or hanged. Madison ignored the whole thing. When Georgia threatened to bolt, Jackson actually took Georgia’s side. It’s not all black and white here. At a certain level, the anti-Federalist and Jeffersonian Republican half of America saw secession as a possibility, even if it were a possibility devoutly to be avoided.
No nation has ever maintained a gold standard through a major war.
And that was why, when the world was on the gold standard, nations did not undertake a major war without putting a great deal of thought into it first. It was too expensive.
Ouch. My mother did similar ---- keeping all of her savings in a 5% passbook account while inflation ran into double digits. She refused to listen to me when I suggested she invest some other way. And then I'd blow a gasket or two doing her taxes at the end of the year and the IRS was sucking on her interest from the first dollar while the Fed inflation was destroying her principle.
Jefferson is widely touted as the "champion of democracy" vs Hamilton the "monarchist." Jefferson's unwavering support of the French REvolution thoughout its most egregious excesses shows his total support of democracy no matter what the cost.
Hype, unsupported by facts.
Jefferson's party was the democrat-republican party are you saying these labels are incorrect?
Another odd question on an issue I didn't raise. Bizarro tactic.
I will admit that the term "democrat" is a relative one and the democrat of 1790 is not quite the same as that of 2004. And that those states were federalists were strongest had a larger percentage of citizens eligible to vote than the states were democrats were strongest.
Which proves?
---- States were not bound by the BoR prior to 1833.
the supremacy clause itself clearly refutes you.
States had established religions, restricted the press (particularly in the South), anti-sedition laws and had other violations of the 1st amendment. I think most conclude that the BoR applied to the fedgov until the 14th amendment extended its reach to states.
Nope, 'most' do not so conclude.. The basic principles of our constitution/BOR's protecting individual rights from ALL levels of government have always been clearly stated.
I agree that Jefferson did support the fedgov but his ideas about the military weakened it immensely.
So what? His ideas on that are not supported today. It's a different world, and we must deal with it.
I also agree that the Civil War was the ultimate battle between Jeffersonianism and Hamiltonism particularly since the latter's goal was to build up a strong industrial base. This made the conflict between the sections more acute with the passing of the years. While it is true that his financial programs did not apply exclusively to the benefit of the North (Virginia had as much industry as any state at the founding) for various reasons the South did not avail itself of those benefits. That would be an extensive discussion in itself. Hamilton wanted to see an end to slavery as Jefferson did early on but the latter seemed paralyzed when it came to any action to do so after 1784. His actions as president wrt the Dominican rebellion in supporting the French are inexcuseable imo.
Everybody makes mistakes.. Your point?
I don't believe Jefferson had a good understanding of the constitution and proof of that was the Ky/Va resolutions which meant essentially that there would be no "law of the Land." These fanned the flames of secession when used by less intelligent people.
The K/V resolutions trumped the constitutuion? How so?
At one point late in his life J gave some support for the idea until Madison rebuked him for it. With Jefferson you can never be sure what he really believed since he was very underhanded and sneaky as the anonymous authorship of the resolutions show.
Get a grip on your empty rhetoric.
He hated open conflict and preferred to work behind the scenes which makes definitive attribution of belief difficult. Hamilton was just the opposite, he could have saved himself great grief by being less open in his espousal of ideas.
Again, what is your point in spouting off these inane opinions?
I do not believe that J would have supported secession under any circumstances particularly since the South controlled the fedgov for most of its existence before the Civil War. Certainly not through armed rebellion. But those claiming to follow his ideas had less judgment and understanding of realities.
Yada yada.. You seem to think your opinions, if they are long and convoluted enough, prove something..
Get real..
They have nothing to do with patriots then or later nor does Junior Johnson have anything to do with them.
Of course they do. Distrust of the Feds has been a constant theme in many parts of Appalachia for generations. In Junior Johnson's day, this manifested itself in the moonshining business from which sprang the modern NASCAR culture. In the 1990s, this distrust was evident from all the "Run, Eric, Run!" signs that could be found in western North Carolina as FBI and ATF agents combed the countryside in search of suspected Olympic and abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph.
It was Jefferson who threw together a Navy and first projected our Naval power throughout the world and and Jefferson who somehow found a grant in the Constitution to buy the Louisania Territory.
This acts -- especially the details of the first Barbary War show Jefferson to be an immensely practical executive, well-grounded and adeptly footed at the same time. And despite Scenic Sounds later additions of Hamilton's own comments, I am hard pressed to imagine that a man who clearly understood limited and enumerated powers -- that is Hamilton, would be so unlimited even by what he meant when he said "plenary powers" for the use of tax revenues.
Do not be giving "general welfare" two distinct meanings at the same time. Hamilton gave it one: the use of Federal revenues and grants must directly benefit the whole and not particular individuals, corporations, groups, or geographic locations. (To damn "scholar" Robert Byrd, that is.)
A sitting Judge at trial has plenary powers -- they have there limits, and can not be blue-sky unlimited.
Although the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government to acquire new territory by treaty, Jefferson concluded that the practical benefits to the nation far outweighed the possible violation of the Constitution. The Senate concurred with this decision and voted ratification on Oct. 20, 1803.Source: Gateway!, New Orleans, "Lousiana Purchase" http://gatewayno.com/history/LaPurchase.html
By the time Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801, negotiations were falling apart. Jefferson bristled at the idea of paying tribute and had long called for war to eliminate the threat of the pirate states; now he had the power to do so. He had promised budget cutbacks, so he cut the Navy’s size. He sent the shrunken fleet to the Atlantic with vague orders to find out which countries were at war with America and attack them, to “chastise their insolence.” The four dispatched ships arrived to find that the state of Tripoli had sent its pirate ships in search of Americans.The war on piracy had the goal of stopping Tripoli’s attacks on Americans, but there was little agreement on what that meant. The initial plan was to blockade Tripoli and trap its ships until the king gave in and signed a favorable treaty, but inept Commodore Richard Morris spent his time cruising the Mediterranean with his wife and convoying merchant ships until being yanked home for court-martial. There was no communication with our forces abroad, and thus no accountability. There was also the danger that war with Tripoli would turn into war with the entire Barbary Coast. Here Jefferson and his diplomats acted skillfully to fight the specific threat to Americans and rely on peaceful means to push other potentially hostile countries towards a lasting peace -- at least until the war with Tripoli was finished.
Because of the confusion over the war’s objectives, it turned into an attempt at nation-building. Ambassador Eaton grew impatient at the slow progress of a Navy-only war and formed a band of mercenaries and Marines, intending to invade Tripoli’s capital by land and replace the king with the king’s brother. Eaton led his men across hundreds of miles of desert and captured the city of Derne against amazing odds, but found he’d been sold out. Jefferson backed away from his semi-official support of the mission, and a rival ambassador signed a peace treaty with Tripoli before Eaton could march on the capital. There was no guarantee of a lasting peace; breaking treaties was sound Barbary business practice. It was not until after the War of 1812 that a strong, experienced American fleet would go to each Barbary port and offer new treaties at gunpoint. [bvw: 1815's Decatur and Bainbridge squadrons]
Source: Kris Schnee, "The War on Piracy", http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N43/col43schne.43c.html
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