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 ...
While you twist words, insert false contentions, and use breathtaking quotations to refute imaginary points, it remains clear that you immaturely hide behind bashing and single issue self righteousness.
If you want to continue to issue your attacks on Jefferson, feel free. I will continue to address the other issues associated with Hamilton and his misdirected actions regarding governmental activism not authorized by the Constitution.
But I understand if none of that is of concern to you.
Conservatism is not populism. Most "right wing" individuals, movements, and tendencies are anti-populist (anti-democratic) and aristocratic. Thus it is hard to understand anti-aristocratic conservatism.
But Jefferson was hardly an oppressed peasant himself. While Hamilton favored a manufacturing/moneyed aristocracy (an aristocracy which theoretically anyone could work his way into, Hamilton's own life being an example) Jefferson was the spokesman of an aristocracy of a very different kind: landed, semi-feudal and almost monarchical. This was an aristocracy one almost had to be born into. In Europe the Right wing is very "Jeffersonian," in that it is anti-capitalist, agrarian, and monarchic. How on earth did Jeffersonianism get the reputation of something popular and democratic?
Alexander Hamilton was not perfect, and neither is industrial capitalism. Unchecked, it is very corrosive not only of the natural environment but of traditional institutions as well, and contrary to what some capitalist utopians think, it doesn't reward everyone who tries to play the game (the myth being that only the lazy suffer). But still, Hamilton was far preferable to the armchair Jacobin Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson's admirers also continually overlook his (and his party's) support of the French Revolution (and nowadays neo-Confederate Jeffersonians have the unmitigated gall to accuse Hamiltonians of being "Jacobins!") as well as his notorious religious heterodoxy and radicalism. The Jeffersonian party may look like the "party of liberty" to people safely ensconced in the twenty-first century, but at the time people were terrified that a Jeffersonian victory would lead to Jacobin terror and irreligion here as had happened in France.
There is no "official" interpretation of the original intent of the Constitution. From the very beginning there have been two schools of thought represented by Hamilton and Jefferson. But neither are implicated in the horrendous situation in which we find ourselves today.
Jeffersonian "conservatives" (particularly the neo-Confederates) need to ask themselves what business they have attacking "aristocracy" and celebrating "the people." The latter is best left to the Left.
The arch-Jeffersonian republican was John Randolph of Roanoke who famously quipped "I am an aristocrat. I love liberty. I hate equality."
You are saying that the debt was so large that the “Confederation was dissolving”.
However, at that very time Hamilton was saying that “a national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a public blessing”, and he was willing to take on the debt you describe as “astronomical”.
You praise him for it.
So, what was it...... “astronomical”, or “not too excessive”.
It's really too bad that a FReeper can't respond meaningfully to a sincere post by a fellow FReeper and has to resort to nasty sarcasm. But I guess that's the way things are.
Jefferson's sympathy for Jacobinism is not satire; it's a fact of history. So is the fact that there is something very unusual about "conservatives" who celebrate "the people" and attack "aristocracy"--particularly when they do so from an inherited semi-feudal estate.
And finally, it is a simple fact that even the Hamilton-hating neo-Confederates have now come to champion Hamilton's protective tariffs (something their ancestors fought against) even as they continue to oppose the sinister Bank.
However, Jefferson was an extremely intelligent man (perhaps even a genius) and played an important part in the founding of our country, and his interpretation of the Constitution, along with Hamilton's, are the two Constitutional theories that go back to the very beginning. I am quite sure that he was also a much more pleasant person than some of his admirers.
The article is OK, but the debate on this thread is very interesting.
It is likely that some of the objections from 'northern brethren' came from convention slave owners Carroll and Chase from Maryland, Franklin from Pennsylvania, Hancock from Massachusetts, and Jay from New York.
Don't be concerned about the clause deletion....it is a bunny path. Its importance lies with the fact that Jefferson paid more than pay lip service to cessation of the slave trade.
“I don't find anyone saying that Adams killed or tried to kill the passage either in the committee or in the Congress.”
The next year Adams, speaking out against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, said that the issue was presently too divisive, and so the legislation should “sleep for a time.” (Henry Wiencek 2004).
I will not waste any more time reading your insults, misrepresentations, and convoluted half-truth arguments.
Kevar hashivoti lekha `al zo’t. Tzohorayyim tovim, Chaveri.
“We should all fear for our Republic.”
I certainly fear for it..... I already miss it.
I feel as if I am sitting on my couch, watching thieves go through my house taking anything they want, while I write letters to my friends telling them how upset I am.
As others have noted, the Declaration wouldn't have changed anything about the slave trade one way or another. Jefferson didn't fight for his clause either. In this as in other things he was more about poses and appearances than following through.
Of course, Congress voted to end the importation of slaves from abroad while Jefferson was president. The Constitution allowed Congress to do so after January 1, 1808, and it would probably have happened whoever was president. Jefferson deserves some credit, I guess, but one also has to take in to account his later views on slavery if one wants to pass judgment on him.
The next year Adams, speaking out against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, said that the issue was presently too divisive, and so the legislation should “sleep for a time.” (Henry Wiencek 2004).
That was actual abolition which went beyond what Jefferson advocated at that point. It was also wartime, and the fate of independence hung by a thread. After the war was over Massachusetts courts ruled slavery invalid based on language in the 1780 state constitution that was largely drafted by ... John Adams.
If Adams was wrong in 1777 he was wrong, but through most of Jefferson's own career Thomas Jefferson also very much wanted anti-slavery legislation to "sleep," even favoring the expansion of slave-owning territory under the specious theory that diffusion would make the institution weaker.
He was a complicated man with different facets in his thought and character, some admirable, others not. I guess you can say that about many people, but it's something "Jeffersonians" haven't always wanted to face up to.
True, Hamilton was as you say, but I’m inclined to believe even he would be appalled at events today. But, then who knows, hell, he might even want to crown the one King.
Alexander Hamilton, long the advocate of European style monarchical government, saw an opportunity to initiate his policies by recommending assumption of individual state debt , and the creation of federal debt as a policy feature of government.
Hamilton used his office as treasury secretary to generate massive reports on debt to rationalize his assertions that nationalization of the states’ debt was beneficial to the country. Claiming dire circumstances, he advocated paying out much of the old debt at face value.
He urged policy makers to assume the debt certificates issued by the Continental Congress and the states. Due to rising debt and the printing of notes, the notes had rapidly lost value. The financial community and speculators were now buying them at depressed values, often ten per cent of face value or less, while anticipating that profits would accrue with a new government and favorable tax laws.
Thus many in the financial community expected to have the old debt assumed by the government and encouraged those that supported new debt as a fundamental characteristic of the new government. Few adhered to the fact that the Constitution did not delegate that function to the government.
Despite the fact that many states had made this action unnecessary by paying off their debts, he moved forward. As news of his plan reached the financial communities of New York and Boston, speculators took advantage of the sluggish flow of information and moved quickly down the east and south purchasing bonds from businessmen, local banks, municipalities, and war veterans for very small percentages of the face values.
John Quincy Adams made the statement that the wealthiest Federalist lawyer in Massachusetts made a huge fortune with the Hamilton initiative. Robert Morris of Pennsylvania and signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution allegedly made over $15 million. Even Alexander Hamilton himself participated in this debt redemption process, but claimed that the profits he made were for a relative.
In essence, this was early wealth redistribution from the citizens to bondholders, via the Treasury, and between different classes of bondholders. Hamilton's debt assumption program was meant, in the opinion of some, to reduce the influence of the states’ governments through a mass of indebtedness that would allow Hamilton's party to create the monarchical government he so strongly advocated.
Thanks for the beep!
I find many of these postings silly. Hamilton believed in a strong federal government, but would never have advocated our BIG government. He had some strange ideas of government, but always advocated efficiency. That is not what we have now. Argument refuted.
Some of you say that he would like today’s government and IRS; oh? From where do you draw these strange fantasies? Hamilton hated debt - - it’s written all over his history and youz guys are saying he’d love today’s government? It’s quite a contradiction.
I’d like to see some citations attached to all these charges, which I consider to be simple stretches of the imagination. Well, after all, it is politics.
I agree with that statement. PeaRidge, why would you characterize Zionist Conspirator's post as you did? You may disagree with his view on these subjects, but it did you a disservice to dismiss his post in that fashion.
I consider myself pretty sensitive to Marxist rhetoric, and I did not hear any Marxist bells ringing in his saying what he did. There are few things done in excess with no checks that will not eventually turn destructive, and unchecked capitalism is no exception, in my opinion.
That I say that does not in any way make me a big government advocate. I have to constantly correct liberals (and conservatives) on this point being an advocate of Tea Party principles as I am, that conservatives are not anti-government. We are anti-EXCESSIVE government. To say that government should have a role in commerce as Zionist Conspirator did is not Marxist, it is being realistic. As Madison said (and we have plenty of experience and proof to buttress it) "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary..."
This is true, and is a thread running through the expressed opinions of nearly all the Founding Fathers and their product, the Constitution: That government must be designed to place checks on the unsavory aspects of human nature, since we cannot trust human nature to police itself.
What on earth was wrong with his post that made you react that way?
This is an important subject, especially in light of what is going on today. If we cannot discuss this honestly, rationally and civilly, amongst ourselves, here on Free Republic, what chance do we have to do so constructively elsewhere?
I have taken to a new game when dining out on the cheap. I will show the waitress/waiter a $5 bill and tell them it is their tip; then show a $10 bill. “But, if you can tell me who this man was and where he was born, this will be your tip.”
It’s a cheap history lesson for them.
Anyone here should feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Alexander Hamilton was not perfect. He had plenty of faults. But so did many others. So do we all.
But Hamilton’s recognition (shared by Madison, Jay and many others) that the lack of a stronger Federal Government would doom our infant nation was one of the things that led him down the road that he took.
I laud Hamilton for devising and implementing a workable mechanism to eliminate our debt in order to allow us to gain positive financial standing and trustworthiness internationally.
Do I agree with all of his other inclinations? No. But at the time, he supplied a piece of the puzzle we desperately needed.
It is not Hamilton’s fault that the Federal Government has turned into the metastasizing hydra-headed monster that it has become today. In my opinion, it is true that most things have a dual nature (may be used for good or evil purpose) and it is not the fault of those things themselves (for example, guns and government) that they are misused and abused by men.
To be honest, I blame politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson and FDR (just to name a few) for what government has become, not Hamilton.
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