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."

[HenryLeeII]

Yes. Most people today have no idea how important Hamilton's ideas and writings were at the beginning of our Republic. His insistence on establishing the nation's good credit rating, no matter the short-term hardships, was one of the most important events in getting this country on sound footing.

[Alberta's Child]

Ping for later discussion.

[Incorrigible]

Weehawken, New Jersey

Recollections of America's most famous duel of honor may weakly rattle around in the hindbrain of anyone who stayed awake during grade school history classes. But who were those guys again?

It was Burr vs. Hamilton -- and someone got killed.

Near a picturesque cliff along the Hudson River, overlooking the island of Manhattan, Aaron Burr did battle with Alexander Hamilton. The date was July 12, 1804.

It all started when the Presidential election of 1800 got gummed up, Bush vs. Gore-style, and Burr eventually landed in the VP seat. Like a whiny public radio commentator, Hamilton sought to undermine Burr with rumors and alleged slander. The two politicians, after a long skirmish of words, finally met on the riverbank below the cliffs and worked it out with pistols.

The actual rock "on which rested the head of Alexander Hamilton" after he was mortally wounded is the base of the monument. Turned out that while Hamilton was (as noted on the stone) a "Patriot, Soldier, Statesman, and Jurist," Burr was a guy from Newark with more pistol practice. Perched atop the Rock of Death is, appropriately, a bronze head of Alexander Hamilton.

Years ago the rock was moved to its current lofty perch on Hamilton Ave. (a dead end street) to make way for the Weehawken yacht basin.

[presidio9]

I'll take the Conservative Hamilton over the Libertarian Jefferson anyday, thankyou.

PS> That's his grave, 1 block from Ground Zero.

[x]

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.

Good point. People lose sight of three things: 1) what's often taken to be the old order was largely a result of Jefferson's and Jackson's electoral victories, not of the ideas of the Framers, 2) Jefferson's views had as many problems as Hamilton's -- arguably we'd still be complaining if states had the kind of power Jefferson wanted and the federal government was no more than a weak league of independent commonwealths, and 3) once the Federalists had been vanquished, Jefferson and his fellow Republicans adopted or adapted many Federalist ideas and programs for their own use.

Jefferson wasn't a consistent libertarian, or state's righter or free trader or anti-industrialist. As with other politicians -- as with Hamilton -- the sense of the national interest sometimes overcame Jefferson's own political ideology.

Today's challenge is how to adapt Jefferson's decentralist vision to current circumstances without taking on all of the historical baggage associated with Jeffersonianism.

[tpaine]

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTONIAN VISIONS FOR AMERICA

Compare the views of Thomas Jefferson (Democrat-Republican) and Alexander Hamilton (Federalist) on the chart below.

______________________________________
Economy:

J) agrarian based.

H) commerce and maufacturing base.

______________________________________
militia v. regular army:


J) Favored militia under state control. The stationing of British troops in America before 1775 showed Republicans that military forces could threaten liberties of the people.


H) Favored standing forces under national control. Federalists believed an army and navy symbolized national power & prestige. Such forces would protect American interests from foreign powers.

_______________________________________
title of President:

J) Keep it simple: "Mr. President."


H) Wanted more stately title, like "His Executive Highness," etc. This woul add prestige to the office.


_______________________________________
power of President:


J) weak executive.


H) strong executive.

______________________________________
tariff:


J) low


H) high

_______________________________________
Revolutionary War debt:

J) The value of debt notes was low. Southerners in particular feared the wealthy northeasterners would purchase the securities at rock-bottom prices, thus making money of widows and orphans of the American Revolution when the gov't paid back the note-holders at 4% interest.


H) The First Report on the Public Credit (1790) argued that assumption of the debt by the national gov't would attract wealthy investors and creditors, thus adding to the prestige of the new republic.

______________________________________
Federal bank:


J) Formation of a bank was not a power granted to Congress. Therefore the US gov't should not establish a national bank.

H) Argued a bank is related to the collecting of taxes, which the Constitution desiganated a responsibility of Congress. A bank would also stabilize currency.


______________________________________
"strict constructionalism":

J) limited government.



J) National government to assume widepowers.


______________________________________
views on democracy:

J) Man is "perfectable," and therefore capable of governing himself.


H) Distrusted people's ability to govern. Believed in elite rule far more than the Jeffersonians.

[21st Century Man]

"He will be hated and despised forever by those who dislike central banks, but I think our experience with the Federal Reserve system has proved them wrong."

Lol...you think the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a good thing?

Are you an heir of a banking interest by chance?

[Federalist 78]

We Worship Jefferson

Mr.Bush: What Would Jefferson Do?

[lentulusgracchus]

Comments? Thoughts?

Aaron Burr was 25 years too late.

[tpaine]

I'll take the Conservative Hamilton over the Libertarian Jefferson anyday, thankyou.
44 -po9-

Conservatism has always been defined by the base principles of our constitutuion..
-- Hamiltons dedication to those basics is questionable.

[lentulusgracchus]

He will be hated and despised forever by those who dislike central banks, but I think our experience with the Federal Reserve system has proved them wrong.

Do you really think so? Wait a while.

You and McCain will get over your admiration of Alan Greenspan, too.

Too, you need to explain your admiration of the performance of Arthur Burns, who as Fed chairmain in the 70's presided over the trashing of the dollar, which declined by a factor of about three during his tenure IIRC. The total inflation factor of the dollar from the beginning of the Vietnamese War to the appointment of Paul Volcker was about 6:1.

Of course, it was only the little guys who got screwed, like my aunt and grandmother, who stupidly continued to believe the old New Dealers' assurances about the continuing value of war bonds and Series E bonds they'd purchased, all through the Burns-directed decline of the dollar.

[presidio9]

Conservatism has always been defined by the base principles of our constitutuion..

Since "the base priciples of our Constitution" seem open to daily interpretation, I'll reject that definition. Give me some specific examples why Hamilton was not a Conservative.

[lentulusgracchus]

the sense of the national interest sometimes overcame Jefferson's own political ideology

Still, we need the Jeffersonian spirit of liberty as the spiritus animans of our country, and it is that spirit, not Hamilton's snobbish, vanguardist, and contemptuous one, that we need presiding over our country.

We can't get that by electing functional Hamiltonians.

[lentulusgracchus]

However, he remained consistent in those views while Madison fell under the spell of Jefferson and went downhill theoretically thereafter.

By which we are to understand, of course, that Madison realized his error, apprehended the cloven foot of his former bedmate, and moved to redeem his humanity -- whereas, of course, Hamilton did not.

[lentulusgracchus]

Conservatism has always been defined by the base principles of our constitutuion.. -- Hamiltons dedication to those basics is questionable.

Good point. Today's conservatives are the liberals, the Jeffersonians, of the 19th century. Hamiltonian was much more "conservative" in the sense of "prerevolutionary" or even "Tory" than Jefferson......after the war was won, his proposals for the Constitution were basically counterrevolutionary and intended IMHO to restore the status quo ante less the Crown of England, by erecting an essentially British "government of inherent authority" on these shores, that would stand over the People and own them for the benefit of people like Hamilton, rather than serve them as Jefferson thought.

[lentulusgracchus]

Since "the base priciples of our Constitution" seem open to daily interpretation, .....

Epistemic eye-gouging and begging the question. The Constitution is written with defined words that have concrete meaning. The "daily interpretation" is the sphere of attorneys and other liars.

The Constitution means what it means. Hamilton meant about half of what he said; the rest was for consumption by the rubes.

[presidio9]

"At the 1932 Democratic convention, however, Franklin Roosevelt blamed "disciples of Alexander Hamilton" for the Great Depression. "

'nuff said.

Enjoy your Socialist Paradise.

[CobaltBlue]

you think the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a good thing? Surely do. 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.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Any "right to secession" meant that the Constitution was meaningless... 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.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The states are not explicitly forbidden to secede, ergo they possess the right to secede. The tenth amendment cannot possibly be more clear than this.

To his credit, Walter Williams has written forcefully about this question [here or here, for starters]: Absent a right to secede, the states, and, more importantly, the people, are powerless to flee the federal tyranny.

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.

This line of argument, and the tyrants [like yourself] who argue it, was precisely what Hamilton feared: Once one gets into the business of enumerating rights, the tyrants [like yourself] will argue that unless a right is specifically enumerated, it does not exist in the first place.

[Rockitz]

The further this nation moves from Federalism, the closer to it comes to it's demise.