That’s interesting. I found the author especially balanced. Most conservatives and liberals tar Hamilton with equal vigor. What keeps him out of your top 5 and who’s in?
We got the America he designed in the Federalist papers. It worked well until Teddy Roosevelt ruined it with his trust busting.
After that FDR simply picked up the reins and steered sharply statist. Our government today would appall Hamilton.
“What keeps him out of your top 5 and who’s in?”
In general and not saying they were all angels but I favored the anti-federalists and the Democratic Republicans - iow, Madison once he got on board, Jefferson, Monroe and other Virginians George Mason, Richard Henry Lee and then Franklin, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush and I gained more appreciation for John Adams despite his being a Federalist, after reading many of his letters including all of them with Jefferson. And again, that said.... I’d still enjoy a Hamilton presidency at this point in time. His ‘big gov’t’ then was micro compared to anything after Lincoln.