Wrong. He was for a strong executive, which the times called for as the early United States was easy prey for rapacious foreign powers. Hamilton believed that the future of America was in extensive industrial development and wealth creation. He favored a strong central government to develop such. There is no way that Hamilton advocated or even envisioned the modern entitlement state -- that is a slander on his memory, beloved of paleocons and libertarians.
The political alternative of the time -- Jeffersonianism -- envisioned a nation of yeoman farmers. His system was propped up by slavery. Hamilton believed in free labor and free markets.
Thank You Cincinatus for setting the record straight. I rather doubt we would have had a survivable republic without Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton put this nation on a sound and strong financial footing.
Sadly, today we live under Jeffersonian democracy as you so eloquently stated. The plantation still exists.
You obviously don’t know Jefferson or Hamilton as well as you like to think. Go read up on the Anti-Federalists and get back to me.
Most Revolutionary War officers were Federalists. The people who bled for years were hardly disposed to create a home grown version of the tyranny they fought. Watching soldiers die from malnutrition, disease, inadequate clothing because of the hapless Confederation government left a mark on their psyche they were determined to correct.
Let's examine a quick summary of Hamilton and see if you are right.
Alexander Hamilton was probably the strongest supporter of the trend towards aristocratic government. By early 1789 he was the treasurer of the U.S. and continually used all his influence to work toward a aristocracy.
According to Hamilton himself, only the “well bred and rich” as he expressed it, were to be recognized in governmental circles. “Lower” people, as he called them, were to have little or no part in government and would be held in check by “coercion of laws and coercion of arms”.
Hamilton's party became known as the Federalists and attempted to install a more powerful federal government (aristocracy) as opposed to Thomas Jefferson's Anti-federalist party which was pushing for state's rights.
This Democratic-Republican Party was founded in opposition to the Federalist party. Together with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison founded the Democratic-Republican Party, a forerunner to the Democratic Party.
Their Platform centered on the rights of states, agricultural interests, and decentralized government.
This was in direct opposition to Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and the Federalists.