[HenryLeeII]

Comments? Thoughts?

[HenryLeeII]

Founding Fathers bump!

[CobaltBlue]

The more I learn about Hamilton's tenure as Treasurer, the more I like him.

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.

This is, of course, controversial, but I happen to agree with McCain's sentiment that if Greenspan died, he'd still appoint him Fed chairman, a la "Weekend At Bernies."

Hamilton also advocated fractional reserve banking.

Economically, the opposite of Hamilton's ideas is Jackson, who shut down the second Bank of the United States. Jackson was a hard money man.

[Alberta's Child]

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."

There's more to it than just this. Most conservatives "love Jefferson" because it has become apparent that the America that Hamilton envisioned turned out to be thoroughly inconsistent with the ideals laid out in the U.S. Constitution. The concepts of "freedom" and "liberty" get very blurred once you have an urbanized industrial society in which people live in close proximity to each other and are practically forced to interact with each other on a daily basis.

[Question_Assumptions]

He was dictatorial, imperious and never understood when to keep his mouth shut.

Well, you could say that, since he died in a duel because he didn't know when to keep is mouth shut.

[Ohioan]

While I disagree with Hamilton's stronger tilt towards the Federal Government than many of his contemporaries, the essays that he wrote among those in the Federalist Papers are not that markedly different in thrust from those of James Madison.

It is a slander of Hamilton, to suggest that he would ever have endorsed the compulsively egalitarian bent in Washington today. That was not the type of strong Federal Government, that he advocated.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Scenic Sounds]

During George Washington's presidency, there arose the issue concerning the constitutionality of creating a national bank. Those opposed pointed out that the Constitution didn't provide any specific express authorization for the Federal government to create a national bank. Those in favor argued that, while there was no specific grant of express authority for a bank in the Constitution, there existed implied authority in the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause.

Treasury Secretary Hamilton and Secretary of State Jefferson provided President Washington with the opposing arguments concerning the correct way to interpret the "necessary and proper" clause:

Hamilton’s argument

Jefferson’s argument

As can be seen, Jefferson argued that if the "necessary and proper" clause were to be construed in the liberal manner that Hamilton argued, there would be no real limit to the scope of the Federal government.

Washington sided with Hamilton's expansive view of Federal power and the Federal government was off to the races.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Comments? Thoughts?

We are not a Hamiltonian nation so much as our federal government is precisely the tyranny that Hamilton predicted it would be when he opposed the Bill of Rights.

Hamilton [alone, as far as I know, among the founders] understood that any explicit list of rights granted to citizens would quickly degenerate from a minimal list of their rights [the rights they possess at a bare minimum] to a maximal list of their rights [beyond which they possess no further rights].

So, for instance, when the slave states sought to exercise their clear and unequivocal tenth amendment right to secede from the union, the anti-constitutionalists [led by Lincoln] were able to argue that no such right existed in the constitution precisely because no such right had been explicitly listed among the rights possessed by the states and the people.

[Texas Federalist]

bump for later

[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.

[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.

[j_tull]

bump for later

[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.

[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.

[Federalist 78]

We Worship Jefferson

Mr.Bush: What Would Jefferson Do?

[lentulusgracchus]

Comments? Thoughts?

Aaron Burr was 25 years too late.

[xp38]

The $10 bill beats the $2 bill.

[DoctorMichael]

Comments? Thoughts?

JMHO.................In many ways the Civil War was a 'proxy' fight for these twin human dynamos: Hamilton and Jefferson.

As the article explains, we owe the mercantilization (the North at that time) to Hamilton while Jefferson wanted to sit on his slave-driven, agrarial, mountain top like a French Philosopher thinking great thoughts (Southern Aristocracy).

Hamilton, and the North, won.

[foreverfree]

bump

[PoorMuttly]

Actually..we're more like Benedict Arnold's America.