[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.

[Deliberator]

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.

I don't think they become "blurred"---I think they just require a greater commitment to minding one's own business.

[HenryLeeII]

In many ways Jefferson has become an ideal more than a blueprint, whereas Hamilton was strictly nuts-and-bolts practicality (whether you agree with his ends and means), which may help explain George Washington's favoring of him (along with Hamilton's wartime experience and Jefferson's lack thereof).

[what's up]

Why can't freedom exist in an industrialized society?

It was the agrarian society in which slavery thrived in the South, don't forget.

[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.