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."

[Deliberator]

it was President Washington and Alexander Hamilton who consciously (particularly in view of Jefferson's comments) decided in favor of the broad implied Federal powers that now concern many conservatives.

I dunno. How much of today's bloated federal government can be justified as "necessary and proper" for exercising its enumerated powers---even under Hamilton's broad reading of "necessary and proper"?

[Verginius Rufus]

Jefferson and Hamilton were bitterly opposed in the 1790s, but when the election of 1800 ended in a tie and some Federalists wanted to make Aaron Burr President instead of Jefferson, Hamilton did his best to dissuade them. Burr was talented but totally unprincipled, the Bill Clinton of his day.

Jefferson later had a bust of Hamilton at Monticello. That may have been one of the busts that Al Gore couldn't identify when he visited Monticello.

[Deliberator]

“For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” asked Hamilton.

I always thought that was Madison's. D'oh! I learn something new every day.

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is false, his ideals were not at all in conflict with the Constitution. Hamilton had as much if not more to do with the calling of the CC, the debate leading to the writing of the document and the ratification of the constitution as any man. He understood it better than any other American, so much so that John Marshall looked up to him as a legal mind.

But he, unlike his enemies, understood that unless the federal government was strengthened and regard for the Union heightened the nation would fall under the yoke of the great empires which surrounded us. Jefferson's view of the future was totally screwed up consisting mainly of empty words and phrases and goofy economic theories. An agricultural nation as he envisioned/wished for would have led to our doom as great nation and our becoming a backwater rather than the most dynamic and important political force in modern history.

Those who think they know something about Hamilton should read Forrest MacDonald's biography. Hamilton was the most important actor in achieving our independence next to Washington. His hatred was more the work of the lying proto-RATmedia of his day. Jefferson was behind most of the liars and for that reason has earned my undying contempt.

His intellectual superiority was so great that J. called him a "host within himself" and "a collosus." No American wrote as much as H. for the common man producing over a 30 yr period hundreds if not thousands of newspaper columns explaining politics.

Every political debate after 1788 revolved around Hamilton as his enemies admitted. But they could not defeat him with the truth and had to rely upon a cabel of lyin' newspapers to distort the truth about him. He was not a "monarchist" nor "pro-British" except to the extent that being so would help our country.

Hamilton was much different than his rivals in that he was a true nationalist and considered himself an American first without a shred of loyalty to a particular State. It is not an accident that Washington admired him more than any contemporary having worked closely with him for over twenty yrs. Hamilton not only was the prime mover for his administration but (unknown to the president) for the first three yrs of Adams'.

Hamilton's brilliance places him firmly within the most significant people in history. It is about time the Jeffersonian lies are cleared out and that he resume his rightful place within our Hall of Heroes.

[Deliberator]

the America that Hamilton envisioned turned out to be thoroughly inconsistent with the ideals laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

That is false, his ideals were not at all in conflict with the Constitution.

You're rebutting an argument that AC never made.

[Deliberator]

Sorry---should have copied you.

[Congressman Billybob]

Hamilton, in addition to being part of the triumvirate that wrote the Federalist, also wrote a treatis "On Manufactures," which dealt with the use of tariffs to protect American businesses, which would otherwise be destroyed by international competition. That's an ancient idea which has currency today.

The beginning of the American Republic has been described as "a contest between Jefferson and Hamilton for the soul of Washington." In many ways, the future of the Republic is the same. Neither Jefferson's nor Hamilton's ideas are sufficient by themselves. Hamilton is generally right; but Jeffersonian ideas are the necessary break and restraint on excessive Hamiltonianism -- as we have today.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Don't delay. Do it now.

[Scenic Sounds]

I dunno. How much of today's bloated federal government can be justified as "necessary and proper" for exercising its enumerated powers---even under Hamilton's broad reading of "necessary and proper"?

Jefferson didn't seem to see limit the possible power of the Federal government if "convenient" qualified as "necessary":

"If has been urged that a bank will give great facility or convenience in the collection of taxes, Suppose this were true: yet the Constitution allows only the means which are "necessary," not those which are merely "convenient" for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to everyone, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed. Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the necessary means, that is to say, to those means without which the grant of power would be nugatory."

As for the the Supreme Court, its usual approach is to limit the power of Congress only where legislation impacts upon a specific Constitutional prohibition (e.g., the Bill of Rights).

[Scenic Sounds]

"Jefferson didn't seem to see limit the possible power of the Federal government if 'convenient' qualified as 'necessary':"

should read:

Jefferson didn't seem to see any limit to the possible power of the Federal government if "convenient" qualified as "necessary":

[Deliberator]

Jefferson didn't seem to see limit the possible power of the Federal government if "convenient" qualified as "necessary"

Although Hamilton used the word "convenient" it was never in a context that I read as making "convenient" qualify as "necessary."

I don't see how, for instance, AFDC falls under any enumerated power even applying Hamilton's test: "If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority."

As for the the Supreme Court

Little hope there for defense of our rights.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hamilton's argument destroyed Jefferson's flimsy attempt for good reason particularly since the latter just threw around learned-sounding phrases with no real logic. Anyone who tried to argue logically with Hamilton was doomed to defeat and was the main reason few of his enemies attempted to refute him. Jefferson's argument was pathetically incompetent while Hamilton's was so brilliant as to stand as one of the greatest statements of the meaning of the constitution as has ever been written. Not much of a surprise since he wrote 2/3s of the Federalist papers.

Jefferson did not distinguish correctly the difference in the means and ends of government. Hamilton easily pointed out the difference and showed that the Bank was a means to an end which allowed the government to carry out the powers entrusted to it (such as national defense and governmental finance.) It is not an end in itself only a means to several ends.

His enemies finally achieved their goal and refused to recharter the Bank at the worst possible time (when financing the War of 1812 became necessary.) To their chagrin the burden of that War and the insanity which erupted within the banking system without a National Bank FORCED them to re-charter it (Madison had changed his mind and wanted re-charter but the ideological whackjobs in Congress were to blind to understand.) Little wonder that Washington sided with Hamilton's view.

Until the Civil War the federal government was tiny so your concluding remark is also false. You might note that there was NO central bank for almost 80 yrs after Jackson unwisely destroyed it. Its absence did not slow down the growth of the fed/gov at all.

Hamilton's argument in the Essay on the National Bank does not give carte blance to government expansion. Federal power was limited by express prohibitions within the constitution, confined to actions not immoral and no actions contrary to the spirit of the document.

No one (not even Jefferson) denied that there were implied powers which were legitimate. He just became a "strict constructionist" out of political expediency but that view leads to idiotic conclusions: we could have no mint since one wasn't mentioned, we could not control our borders since that is not mentioned among other things.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Slander of Hamilton became a national passtime after his death. His views were not terribly different during the writing of the Constitution than Madison, as you point out. However, he remained consistent in those views while Madison fell under the spell of Jefferson and went downhill theoretically thereafter.

He wanted a government strong enough to protect the Union and to assist the economic development of the Nation. He was an American first and foremost not a New Yorker.

[jmcclain19]

bump for later read

[justshutupandtakeit]

Well the Revolution was mainly fought in New York and New Jersey far more so than in other states.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Total b.s. the Whiskey Rebellion was directed AT the constitution and the government it produced.

[j_tull]

bump for later

[justshutupandtakeit]

Implied powers were not in dispute until it became expedient for Jefferson to argue against them. You should study some of the deeper sources of history of that era.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Madison also agreed with Hamilton that no Bill of Rights was needed but they had to concede it to get the constitution ratified.

Any "right to secession" meant that the Constitution was meaningless. That specific argument was specifically refuted during the ratification by no less than Madison who stated that the states joining the Union were forever part of the Union. Unless a constitutional amendment allowing separation was ratified. The 10th amendment merely referred to local and state law not in conflict with the Constitution and police powers, public health concerns etc., issues which would affect ONLY states and localities.

Under the Constitution there can be NO action by any one state or group of states which affects the Union as a whole.
Any belief to the contrary must throw logic out the window since it is tantamount to denying that the document is the Law of the Land. It leads to such absurdities as claiming that though no state has the right to print money it has the right to do something far more drastic, secede. Secession was the nightmare of ALL the founders and Jefferson as well.
Recall his comments in his first inaugural address and Washington's (Hamilton's) in the Farewell Address which is directed at secession.

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is totally correct. Hamilton conceded that Jefferson "had pretensions to integrity" while Burr had none. Burr was a RAT through and through. Washington hated him.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The America that Hamilton envisioned was not in conflict with the Constitution.