Posted on 11/19/2010 1:12:45 PM PST by Pyro7480
On Thursday's Parker-Spitzer, CNN's Kathleen Parker bizarrely and inaccurately claimed that Alexander Hamilton came to the United States illegally and drafted the Constitution: "Let's remember...a lot of Americans did come through the back door such as Alexander Hamilton. He got off the boat from the West Indies, and all he did was write the Constitution and become the first Secretary of the Treasury."
Parker raised this false history during a discussion of Pedro Ramirez, Fresno State University's student body president, who was outed as an illegal immigrant by a student newspaper. After playing clips from Ramirez and his opponent during the student election, who is also the president of the Fresno State College Republicans, the CNN host displayed sympathy for the college student: "This is kind of a classic though, isn't it, really? I mean, you've the college Republican versus the illegal immigrant, and it's kind of a classic clash, you know, that corresponds to this immigration debate we're having in this country. And clearly, when you put a human face on the illegal immigrant, it's a different story. I mean, nobody wants to punish this young 22-year-old."
...Actually, Hamilton came to New York City from the British West Indies in 1774 to study at King College, which was renamed Columbia University after the American War for Independence. Of course, New York was still a British colony at this point, so the young Hamilton didn't "come through the back door."
More importantly, Hamilton didn't write the Constitution- that credit generally goes to James Madison....
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
My daughter was a Converse Connie.
You may want to check your dates (I just did). Wallonia, Belgium was the birth place of the IR on the continent but decades after England... and with much of it do to an Englishman John Cockerill.
I’m with you on this one.
Hamilton was highly concerned that the American Revolution would disintegrate in exactly the way the French Revolution did, and he fought to keep it from happening. He seems, so far, to have been successful.
Hamilton was the original “America is a Republic not a Democracy” guy. Why so many who claim to his position despise him is a mystery to me.
God sent both to balance centralized government and mob rule.
Next, they’ll be telling us that Crispus Attucks was killed by Tea Partiers.
Education in public schools could be the cause.
I myself used to think highly of Hamilton, because of what I'd been taught in school, plus Burr's reputation as a scoundrel which was well-documented on teevee and elsewhere.
Little did I know, then, that Hamilton was not quite in the tradition of other founders. Like, he might have been the original elitist, a member of "the ruling class" recently brought to the public's attention by Dr. Angelo Codevilla in his magnificent book.
You may want to browse (or buy) this recent critique of Hamilton for a contrarian view of one of the most misunderstood men of the nation's founding. It could change your opinion of him.
He may have died young, but his vision of government did not die with him.
Memo to moron Parker: Hamilton wrote some of the Federalist Papers. He did not write any of the Constitution. As for his immigration status, it is irrelevant since he became an American before we had a country, much less a Naturalization Act.
This is what happens when you let a menopausal liberal female drive.
Ever hear the phrase "Not worth a Continental?" What do you suppose it meant? How do you suppose the Founders rectified the lethal problem?
You don't have to answer just think for a change instead of sucking down idiot sound bites and spewing up their half-digested remains.
Another confirmation that although ignorance can be fixed, there is no cure for stupid.
On an international news and political commentary program?
How long has this bimbo been on national TV?
No, I won't waste my time googling her.
I’m quite familiar with the whole Jefferson/Hamilton argument. On the whole, I lean towards Hamilton.
Jefferson was a repulsive person in private and public life. While he wrote a great deal about courage, honor and honesty, he did not live up to his ideals, and does not seem to have made much effort to do so.
One example. For most of his life Jefferson talked a great game about the evils of slavery. Yet he made no effort to live his life in a way that would allow him to free his slaves when he died. Instead he lived extravagantly and died deeply in debt. Almost all his slaves, despite his having made the empty gesture of freeing them in his will, had to be sold to pay the estate’s debts, including splitting up families.
Jefferson, while writing the greatest words in human history extolling liberty, made absolutely no effort to live his life in accordance with what he claimed as his ideals.
Meanwhile, George Washington, who spent a great deal less time mouthing off about the importance of human liberty, spent the last years of his life planning and arranging that his slaves would not only be freed but would be provided for during the difficult transition to freedom.
You also might be interested in the little known fact that John Adams spent the last years of his life moving in the opposite political direction from the rest of the country, winding up with even greater attachment to the monarchical and aristocratic principles of goverment than Hamilton.
Thomas Paine, who arguably had as much to do with the success of the revolution as any man other than Washington, arrived in the same year, 1774, direct from the UK.
Alas, those were not efforts that turned into a sustained industrial development over a broad area ~ just advances in engineering applications.
You're not referring to the invention of the submarine with screen doors, are you?
Ils sont Belges, alors!
Sorry, if anyone was ‘slandered’ it was Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton’s fondness for the Crown is irrefutable.
Post 132 - Utter lies.
Thanks for your brilliant evidence-based rebuttal.
Be that as it may, Hamilton gave not a flip about the rights of the States. Just look at the plan he introduced at the Convention, which sank like a stone, and whose lack of support caused him thereafter to remain practically silent at the Convention. he did, of course, use his great argumentative skills to defend the plan arrived at by the Convention, and joined with Madison to set the new government on a firm foundation. But within a year, the two had split over the issue of the central bank, which Madison and Jefferson believed anathema to the liberties of the States.
The first extensive use of machinery was in the Low Countries during our Middle Ages. I have read there were more of them in the Netherlands than in all China at the time. They were a necessary part of the war against the sea. If we were as good at this game as the Dutch, Katrina would have not overwhelmed New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. Next time you are in the Netherlands, take a tour of them. As impressive in their way as the Great Wall of China.
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