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

Wall Street Journal | February 4, 2004 | Cynthia Crossen

[CobaltBlue]

as Nobel-Prize winning economist Milton Friedman has long noted, is that our economy has been more unstable and has had slower economic growth ever since the Federal Reserve was established.

That wasn't the conclusion I drew from reading Friedman & Schwartz's Economic History of the United States. If you have a copy handy, could you point me towards the most persuasive chapter? I have the common paperback version, we might even have the same edition.

[tpaine]

I think the Jeffersonian republic we began to lose around 1900 was a much better system than the one we find ourselves in now.

We lost it quite a bit before then.
Several years ago I read an essay stating that we really weren't all that different from the French because we had experienced 4 republics. This was a bit different from Yale historian Bruce Ackerman's 3 republics based on constitutional interpretation, and different again from Jude Wanniski's 4 republics. (I'm still trying to find that essay.) I'll try to sum the essay quickly and forego my usual pedantic writing style.

Where did we 'lose it' before 1900?

The First Republic functioned under the Articles of Confederation but failed after only a decade, killed off by trade wars between the states. There was no common currency. Things fell apart. The Second Republic was founded by Hamilton and Madison and functioned under the Constitution. During the ratification debates, anti-Federalists (adherents of the First Republic) saw the Constitutional Convention as treason and a betrayal of 1776. Read the "Anti-Federalist Papers" to get the gist of the argument. The Federalist impulses of Washington and Hamilton were derailed by Jackson who went to a full states' right regimen. Jackson's impact was so great that to restore Hamiltonian governance required cracking the Union and fighting a war. Things fell apart.

Quite convoluted theory. -- IMO, the 'states rightists' were direct anti-constitutionalists. They meant to destroy the union, and almost did.

The Third Republic was founded by Lincoln and functioned under a greatly amended version of the Constitution. It was a purely Hamiltonian construct, created when Lincoln refused the states what they felt was the ultimate state's right: To leave peacefully.

The states had no enumerated power to leave. By leaving, they were violating the constitutional rights of state residents who enjoyed US Constitutional protection from the dictates of majority rule.

Big Business ran the country. During the Second Republic, the Jeffersonian impulse was exercised via states' rights and a weak federal government, but the Civil War and the amended Constitution had killed that off.

The 14th amendment 'killed off' Jeffersonian principles? - It's intent was to restore them.

As a result, during the Third Republic the Jeffersonian impulse (via the Progressive Movement) favored Big Government protecting the people from Big Business, i.e. Jeffersonian ends achieved through Hamiltonian means. Theodore Roosevelt made the first strides in this direction.

You just jumped over about 50 years of working jeffersonian republic, as I mentioned in my first line, above..

Today we call it "compassionate conservatism." A business panic related to easy credit from the Federal Reserve led to a depression blamed on Big Business. Things fell apart. The Fourth Republic was created by Franklin Roosevelt and functioned under Executive Orders. The Constitution meant what hired judges said it meant, and Earl Warren had as much power as the president. This republic was not so much Democratic Socialism as Government Capitalism with a large bureaucracy running the country and the people insulated from ruling themselves. Presidents and Congresses came and went, but the courts and bureaucracy continued on.

Sure glad you weren't so pedantic.

Technically speaking, the Jeffersonian republic ended when Lincoln decided to go Hamiltonian and won the argument in 1865.

I think it continued for nearly 50 more years, until the prohibitionary socialists gained control..

FDR created a semi-socialist version of the Jeffersonian republic, but it's getting to expensive to maintain. Eventually things will fall apart – but when?

They are falling now -- as we speak, literally..

I see hamiltonian-socialism/statism on one side of this political gulf, and jeffersonian-republican/conservatism on the other, both defined by our view of the principles of our constitution. Far too many citizens are willing to ignore our base principles for the political issues of the day.

[bvw]

People give words meaning, but somehow the words themselves even in their most aethereal ideal and ideation, have an real inertia, a weight that is there independent of the person.

That is, the words --- some words -- are there, anchored, at the most primary level of existance and not mutable by social and personal disposition, climates and times.

Without those absolutist words even kaos, chaos, and the Devil, himself, with Schrodinger's cat cuddled in his arms can naught ever be.

[timydnuc]

The founding fathers did just that, they founded, and gave us our republic (if we can keep it). As I have studied American history I find great inspiration from these truths. The good men that founded this Republic had huge disagreements, just like we Republicans do now. But, they put those differences behind them for the good of the Republic and the generations to come, and lived in the light of liberty and self government. The Burr/Hamilton dual was a part of bravado that filled the era. I wish Arron Burr was able to live out his life, but that was not to be. If we looked to every hero that has been killed and stopped at that point, we would never have gotten this far. Their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor was dedicated to the republic that is ours. We picked up the honor and we carried on. I pass it to my son, he passes it to his son, etc, etc, etc. That makes a country, that makes liberty, that makes us the best to "keep it".

Fight to keep it, with all it's richness history.

[Publius]

The elements you have quoted come from Hamilton's five-hour stemwinder that opened the Constitutional Convention. I've always called it the Grand Design speech.

When it was over, there was a long silence. George Washington, presiding officer of the Convention, cleared his throat and uttered the 18th Century equivalent of "Next!". Even Madison was embarrassed for his old friend.

Hamilton had misread the situation and gone too far.

[Alberta's Child]

Gold or other metals will never be a monetary standard again anymore than bleeding will be re-introduced as a cure-all. To move to such a standard would cause an immediate shrinkage of the money supply and collapse the economy.

You're going to have to explain that one to me -- I'm not sure that's true at all.

[Publius]

Your two very learned posts leave little for me to disagree with. Except for this:

Lincoln could cite some Jeffersonian Republican precedents for his policies, and he and his idol Clay never particularly thought of themselves as Hamiltonians.

Clay was elected to Congress the same year that Hamilton died, and he immediately picked up the fallen standard of Hamilton with respect to the tariff and Hamilton's vision of a nation built on manufactures. Clay's "American Plan" was but an extention of Hamiltonian principles.

[Who is John Galt?]

Bump!

;>)

[Who is John Galt?]

Hamilton had misread the situation and gone too far.

Our friend justputmeoutofmymisery has insisted (repeatedly ;>) that Mr, Hamilton 'went too far' only because he wanted the convention to produce exactly what it produced. I don't know if his viewpoint could best be classified as 'rationalization' or 'wishful thinking'...

;>)

[StriperSniper]

He is often called the "father of American capitalism" and the "patron saint of Wall Street."

And buried at the head of Wall St. in the yard of Trinity Church next to Robert Fulton.

[Publius]

Well now, help me out here. Are you saying that the 18th Amendment was the demarcating line that marked the end of the Jeffersonian republic? You would put Prohibition above the Civil War?

And how do you see the 14th Amendment as a reaffirmation of Jeffersonian principles?

[Publius]

My understanding is that Hamilton was one of the actual founders of the New York Stock Exchange.

[tpaine]

Technically speaking, the Jeffersonian republic ended when Lincoln decided to go Hamiltonian and won the argument in 1865.

I think it continued for nearly 50 more years, until the prohibitionary socialists gained control..
I see hamiltonian-socialism/statism on one side of this political gulf, and jeffersonian-republican/conservatism on the other, both defined by our view of the principles of our constitution.
Far too many citizens are willing to ignore our base principles for the political issues of the day.

Well now, help me out here. Are you saying that the 18th Amendment was the demarcating line that marked the end of the Jeffersonian republic? You would put Prohibition above the Civil War?
And how do you see the 14th Amendment as a reaffirmation of Jeffersonian principles?

Our inalienable rights to 'life liberty, and property' were old Jeffs words, writ anew in the 14th..
In effect, we fought the civil war to make it absolutely clear that NO level of government, fed/state/local, had the power to infringe upon those individual rights.

The 18ths decree of prohibition on booze was arguably the most blatant such infringment in our history.
It flat out made an edict that one group of citizens could dictate what intoxicating substances their peers could possess..

Would you support an edict that one group of citizens could dictate what type of arms their peers could possess?

[x]

Clay's "American Plan" was but an extention of Hamiltonian principles.

That's the way it looks to us now. But Clay entered politics as a Jeffersonian Republican. Hamilton and Federalism were anathema in Kentucky. Praise of aristocracy didn't play well in lands which had only recently been frontier country.

So while today's historians might see Clay as the philosophical heir of Hamilton, he saw himself more as an outgrowth of the nationalism of Madison and Monroe. I don't have a problem with historians putting Clay or Lincoln in the Hamiltonian camp, but a footnote indicating that they probably wouldn't have seen themselves in that way might give a more accurate impression.

Thanks for the response. I have also appreciated your posts. It's undoubtedly true that the Civil War was a great divide or watershed in American history that separated two very different worlds. But some of the conclusions that people draw from that fact are much more questionable, such as the idea that Lincoln intended to bury the Old Republic or that Jefferson's was the only way to understand the Constitution.

I was a big fan of Jefferson and even of the Confederacy when I was in high school, but Jefferson and Jeffersonians tended to overplay their hand. Too often they portrayed their opponents as men without principle, and their own understanding of the Constitution as the only legitmate one. While the Jeffersonian love of liberty was commendable, they were too quick to dismiss the dangers of anarchy, civil war, and foreign domination.

Getting the American republic started was a difficult process, frought with many difficulties, and the contributions of Federalists, and later of Whigs, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Whichever side one comes down in the end, it does pay to at least consider whether there wasn't something to be said for the other side of the conflict.

[Publius]

Did you ever read Conor Cruise O'Brien's 1996 article in the Atlantic where he argued that Jefferson should be expelled from the circle of the Founders? I posted that article on FR, and it led off one of our very best threads. I've recently posted links to that article in other threads. (I'm sure you could find it blindfolded.)

[tpaine]

Getting the American republic started was a difficult process, frought with many difficulties, and the contributions of Federalists, and later of Whigs, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Whichever side one comes down in the end, it does pay to at least consider whether there wasn't something to be said for the other side of the conflict.
234 -x-


___________________________________


Do you two really think there is another 'side to the conflict'?

We can see where the big gov, ignore the constitution, hamiltonian side has led us.. -- We are there.

What more is to be said for that side?

[hirn_man]

Your infallible logic sure has swayed me.

[american spirit]

Sorry, nothing you've posted would be cause for any kind of confusion other than trying to figure out your thought process and that's been tough enough. I'm quite comfortable in my position on this issue especially after trying to make some sense out of your ramblings (and failing to do so).

[nopardons]

No skin off my nose. Remain in your own wee world. LOL