We Worship Jefferson, But We Have Become Hamilton's America [Wall Street Journal article]

Wall Street Journal | February 4, 2004 | Cynthia Crossen

[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."

[bvw]

The argument that Hamilton was not Jewish is weaker than that he was. That he attended a Jewish Day School in the islands and that his mom's name was Rachel are very potent evidences for his being Jewish. That his best friend as a young man in Manhattan was named Hercules adds some spice to that theory.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hamilton's intrepretation restricted the gov spending to activities which were not directed at helping specific areas and not the whole. He believed canal building to be unconstitutional for example.

It is clear to me that the phrase was meant to allow expenditure for non-specified purposes "and General Welfare of the United States" means just that. There is no ambiguity within it other than disputes over what would be interpreted as the General Welfare. It WAS a restrictive phrase but only in that such expeditures could not be taken which would benefit only a state or group of states or group of people. There is NO implication that such expenditures could be made for just any purpose whatsoever. Neither Hamilton nor any of the founders believed that.

[21st Century Man]

"Very few banks which were members of the Federal Reserve system failed during the Great Depression. The vast majority of bank failures were state banks."

You think that might have had anything to do with the government-sponsored monopoly that the Federal Reserve Act created? LMAO

Instead of buying the propaganda on the Federal Reserve's indispensable significance to the US economy, I suggest you take a look at some of the hard-core info available, G. Edward Griffith's book "The Creature from Jekyll Island" is a good literary work and here is a link from the Nat'l. Center for Constitutional studies:

http://www.nccs.net/part2.html

Here's what that fool ex-president Wilson had to say in retrospect (1919) about his part in the selling of America:

"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated [in the Federal Reserve System]. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.... We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world-no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."

Are you really in favor of replacing "We The People" with "We The Sheeple"?

Another quote worth remembering...

“There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813

[justshutupandtakeit]

Thanks for the correction.

[bvw]

A closer reading of the history of money shows that yes, at times gold and hard money seem passe. And those times have happened again and again and again. To call gold "ancient" and favor a more flexible exchange that's no NEW thing!

Yet every time, gold returns. and a later generation bemoans the folly of leaving it for paper.

There are cycles. The Bible is wise in the idea of the Jubilee year, although how some similar cyclical construct applies outside of the Bible's Israel is yet to be dicovered and understood -- I am hopeful there are ways of doing so.

[Deliberator]

There is NO implication that such expenditures could be made for just any purpose whatsoever.

Pretty close to it---see Hamilton's own words in post #100.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Thanks for your fascinating post. I have been looking for a cheap copy of the MacDonald book and have read almost all of his others that I am aware of as you have probably noticed from my posts. His biography of Hamilton is the clearest explanation of the financial program I have ever seen.

I forgot about California but Vermont was covered by the constitutional requirement that no state could be formed from another state without the permission of the latter.

[Publius]

I recommend Young Hamilton by James Flexner. It goes into deep detail in these matters.

[bvw]

Thanks!

(My B-I-L's dad did die today around noon. my nephews tests were all positive, and he is back home, hard drive to the city, though -- two major tractor-trailer accidents occurred enroute.)

[twigs]

There is no evidence that Hamilton was Jewish, although I did not realize before that his mother's first husband was Jewish. It does make an interesting story. My daughter's name is Rachel, but we're not Jewish. My ancestors of this period were mostly named from the Old Testament, but they were not Jewish, either. There was a lot of interest in and identification with the OT, so Christians many times named their children from it. He went to the Jewish school because he was considered illegitimate and was not accepted in the Christian School. We have to give the Jewish school credit for that one! And Hercules is hardly a Jewish or Christian name. He was one of the ancient pagan gods. Jackson was Irish and another interesting man.

[bvw]

Well, what does it say?

[justshutupandtakeit]

There were two expeditions sent out against the Indians both of which were defeated and the St.Clair led one was slaughtered in the most devastating loss to Indian tribes yet. Washington did NOT create a federal army he called up the militia of Virginia, Maryland, NJ and eastern Pennsylvania to deal with the problem. The federal army at the time was tiny.

Residents of Appalachia don't just distrust the fedgov they distrust all outsiders and all governments. Criminals, by nature, hate all authority. And that is what bootleggers were romantic as you might like to consider them.

[Publius]

Don't go for cheap copies. You need these things to last, especially if you find yourself constantly going back to them for reference.

Several years ago I went to Amazon and ordered everything McDonald ever wrote. Novo Ordo Saeculorum was a tough slog, but by the end it was worth it. And yes, his biography of Hamilton rivals Flexner's work. But States' Rights and the Union is his masterpiece. By the way, he has a new book coming out soon about the economic crises in our history.

The Vermont issue was messy for everyone. New York had a claim, New Hampshire had a claim, but Vermont's citizen militias had made its independence a reality. They had even fought brilliantly during the Revolution. That move to negotiate with Canada, however, was worthy of Howard Dean.

Washington made the correct call there. Lord Dorchester spent the remaining years of his life stirring up trouble with the Indian tribes to contain or even snuff out the early Republic. Only some severe rebukes from his masters at Whitehall restrained him.

[Yardstick]

Excellent FR thread *BUMP!* and placemarker for later reading.

[Who is John Galt?]

I have not read through all of the posts here - have you informed these folks that you consider James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to have been "treasonous;" that you consider Mr. Jefferson "scum;" and that you believe it would be 'constitutional' for a D@mocrat Congress to appoint Hillary Clinton 'Queen of the United States?'

Caveat emptor...

[bc2]

.

[Publius]

It says that Hamilton wasn't Jewish as we would understand it. But read the book, please! It goes into tremendous detail on the lives of Hamilton's parents. His mother's behavior would be considered quite "modern", even today.

[bc2]

this is the Free Republic of the old days, glad to see you posting.

bc2

[the invisib1e hand]

McCain's sentiment that if Greenspan died, he'd still appoint him Fed chairman

this comment hadn't permeated my subterranean enclave in a faraway land until just now. It's a hoot.

[tpaine]

I don't 'get it' guys.. Why do you detest Jeff & set an elitist like Alex on a pedestal? They were both flawed men, as are we all.. --- But one upheld the principles of a constitution of liberty, while the other didn't much care for those basics.
Sorry, I think the Jeffersonian republic we began to lose around 1900 was a much better system than the one we find ourselves in now.
105 tpaine


_______________________________________

bvw wrote:

tpaine: I meant that your table -- that first one, was too summarified. And in that over-summarification represented your own forcing of a polarity upon the two men.


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.

---

I haven't "forced a polarity".

And frankly, the rest of your comments leave me wondering as to your point..
First you sort of agree with Jeff, then you switch to a defense of Alex on taxes, and end up with a bunch of unconnected quotes that prove what?

You too seem to think that convoluted sentences on arcane points make up valid argument & discourse..

All they really do is confuse the issues..