Hamilton was a loyal, competent officer. He was also a far more honest man than Federalists such as John Marshall. Nevertheless, his views always tended in the end toward the leviathan state, even if that was not what he hoped for. His advocacy of central banking and national debt is just one of his unfortunate legacies. As for the Federalist Papers, they were a sales and marketing tool for a more powerful federal government, and he could only push what was on offer in the Constitution, and that wasn’t a monarchy.
Madison would not agree that he, Hamilton, etc. were the most important “Founders”. Madison rightly said that the true founders were the men who met in each state to ratify the Constitution on behalf of the state. He is absolutely right about that. I would also suggest that Sam Adams and his generation were more important to the founding than Madison or Hamilton.
Regardless of his other views at other times, Hamilton's significant contributions to the Federalist Papers give us our most important insights into Founders’ Original Intent with their new Constitution.
And by definition of the word (American) “conservative”, our Founders original intent tells us our bedrock beliefs.
By stark contrast, you have consistently argued against Founders original intent and for anti-Federalists opinions.
After their defeat by the Federalists’ Constitution, most anti-Federalists became Jefferson anti-Federalists, then in time, Jefferson Democratic Republicans, and eventually, Jackson Democrats.
Yes, of course, it's a far cry from Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans to today's progressive-liberal Democrats.
But there is one matter of total consistency: Democrats have ALWAYS insisted on special privileges for their own voters.
Before the CW that meant slave-owners.
Today it means the descendants of slaves and other “oppressed” minorities.
That's why I've long suspected that at least some pro-Confederates posting here are really just old-time Dixie Democrats, hoping to convince the rest of us that their anti-Federalist version of “Conservative” is actually superior to the Founders’ original intent.
In fact, that's not “conservative” at all, it's just more of the same-old same-old special privileges for Democrat voters.