Posted on 05/28/2012 3:36:36 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
How many things are in a person's pocket that they don't even know about?
We take money for granted -- most people can't tell us which way George Washington is facing on the quarter. They can tell us that Ben Franklin is on the front of the hundred, but they can't tell us that Independence Hall (where he helped draft the Constitution) is on the back.
One might think that as denominations get smaller and more common, the pictures on them would become more famous and well-known. The ten-dollar bill features Alexander Hamilton on the front. Since he was never a president himself, one wonders how many Americans could explain how he got on the note. A hint is on the back, where there is a picture of the U.S. Treasury. In short, Alexander Hamilton was the first secretary of the Treasury.
But it was how he handled that position that garnered him immortality on our money.
A lot of people living in the United States in 1790 believed (as a lot of people do today) that the debts incurred during the American Revolution should just be ignored. What modern people would think of as the United States didn't begin until 1789. The debts run up before that time were under a different government, so why should the new government be responsible for that debt?
Alexander Hamilton argued against this.
He believed that the new nation needed a good reputation on the international scene. If the United States was known to honor its debts, it would find it easier to get loans. Hamilton pointed out that this would be especially useful in a national emergency. Moreover, Hamilton wanted the federal government to take up all the state debt as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
We should all fear for our Republic.Obviously, I concur (see screenname).
Alexander Hamilton was the original ‘Big Government” guy. He would’ve been very happy to see how the grand experiment turned out.
I'm sure in his time, most in government were on the plus side of honorable, unlike today. The scale of debt in blue states like California, et al is staggering - they are run nowhere near anyone with any sense would call honorable.
True, he felt it was for the collective good will and camaraderie, etc. and that it would foster a common will, but we as a nation are about as fractured as a nation could be. Truthfully, I doubt whether I, maybe many like me, will ever want anything to do with California, Massachusetts, etc...again.
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.
Great piece.
Spoken like someone with a superficial knowledge of the founders, at best.
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.
Taking on states’ debts in those days compared to the currrent situation would be apples to oranges.
Hamilton was not the father of the modern entitlement state or society, and would as has been stated, be horrified of such.
And that is what we have now. In such a society and corresponding government, freedom naturally erodes, as does the full faith and credit of the nation.
We needed both of them to create the greatness of America. We needed Jefferson for his contribution and we needed Hamilton for his.
Under God’s blessing and guiding hand, we got both.
We are now about to throw all of it away, and in certain respects, already have.
Cincinatus: Wrong ...
Yashcheritsiy: Spoken like someone with a superficial knowledge of the founders, at best.
From the Article: A lot of people living in the United States in 1790 believed (as a lot of people do today) that the debts incurred during the American Revolution should just be ignored. What modern people would think of as the United States didn't begin until 1789. The debts run up before that time were under a different government, so why should the new government be responsible for that debt?Hamilton was indeed a big government guy.Alexander Hamilton ... believed that the new nation needed a good reputation on the international scene. If the United States was known to honor its debts, it would find it easier to get loans. Hamilton pointed out that this would be especially useful in a national emergency. Moreover, Hamilton wanted the federal government to take up all the state debt as well. He believed that it would help foster kinship among Americans by uniting them against a common problem.
Hamilton attempted to pay off the revolutionary war debt with a whiskey excise tax. The tax fell on a limited population (farmers living in the frontier) and was punitive in amount, and stifled commerce. It was met with what is now known as the Whiskey Tax Rebellion. The war resulted in Washington taking the field in an unsuccessful attempt to quash the rebellion in Pennsylvania. The war dragged on until the tax was repealed; the government failed to break even on the levy (the cost of the war exceeded the tax receipts). Distillation enterprises were driven from Pennsylvania and North Carolina to Kentucky and Tennessee (which were not members of the Union at the time), and underground in North Carolina and Virginia -- situations that persist to this day.
Hamilton believed in a strong federal government to the detriment of states rights. He favored free enterprise, but regarded it as an tool to fund his beloved government. He implemented draconian taxes, believed in unnecessary government regulations, and would have loved the modern day IRS.
I strongly admire our Founding Fathers and owe them an immeasurable debt of gratitude, but they, including Hamilton, were not entirely without fault.
Wrong. I spent a good portion of my academic life studying the Founders. There's a very good reason that Thomas Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists bitterly opposed him.
Debt is debt, regardless of the reason it is incurred or the color of the fruit it bears. But I do agree that there is a difference be "specific" debt and the "continual" debt we have now.
I have no condemnation of Hamilton; his ideals were of a different time, and that was the point of my post.
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.
While I admire Hamilton in many ways and for many things, I also give much credence to what Thomas Jefferson said about debt:
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared.”
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
“When all government shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will become as oppressive as the government from which we separated.”
“But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.”
“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution… taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.”
Precisely. And they were hardly a monolithic group who all saw eye to eye and marched in lock-step. More often than not, they spent their time squabbling with each other, both privately and publicly.
Also, there weren't too many tears shed at the time when Jefferson's political ally Aaron Burr shot and killed Hamilton.
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared.”
In his private life he was quite profligate. Always had to have the finest wines, books, furniture and scientific instruments from Europe. As a result he went deeply into debt, thus being unable to free any of his slaves since he had had mortgaged them.
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
Difficult to imagine a better description of a slaveowner. A parasite indeed.
You’re right. Hamilton is the GOPe, and Jefferson is the tea party.
Well, even the great apostle Paul, in recognition of the extent to which he failed to live up to God’s perfection, cried out, “Oh wretched man that I am...”
Don't Know Much About History "'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," David McCullough tells me on a recent afternoon in a quiet meeting room at the Boston Public Library. Having lectured at more than 100 colleges and universities over the past 25 years, he says, "I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking."
He's right. This week, the Department of Education released the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found that only 12% of high-school seniors have a firm grasp of our nation's history. And consider: Just 2% of those students understand the significance of Brown v. Board of Education.
Mr. McCullough began worrying about the history gap some 20 years ago, when a college sophomore approached him after an appearance at "a very good university in the Midwest." She thanked him for coming and admitted, "Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast." Remembering the incident, Mr. McCullough's snow-white eyebrows curl in pain. "I thought, 'What have we been doing so wrong that this obviously bright young woman could get this far and not know that?'
......."History is a source of strength," he says. "It sets higher standards for all of us." But helping to ensure that the next generation measures up, he says, will be a daunting task.
One problem is personnel. "People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively," Mr. McCullough argues. "Because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing." The great teachers love what they're teaching, he says, and "you can't love something you don't know anymore than you can love someone you don't know."
Another problem is method. "History is often taught in categories—women's history, African American history, environmental history—so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea what followed what."........
Agreed.
However, unlike Paul TJ was not noted for humility.
If you spend your life preaching about the evils of slavery from a high moral platform, but make no effort at all to remove yourself from participation in the institution, it is not unreasonable to point out the hypocrisy.
Washington, OTOH, did not make a great show of opposition to slavery, but did spend his retirement getting his affairs in order so that all his slaves could be freed on his death, with careful provision for their training in a trade or support for the elderly.
I know which character I consider more worthy of honor.
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