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To: DiogenesLamp; jmacusa; rockrr; DoodleDawg
So much can happen in 200 years that books and articles like this are nonsense. If Hamilton were Attila the Hun, there might be some sense is portraying him as pure evil 200 years after he died. But he wasn't. There was a legitimate debate about what policies would be necessary for us to survive and prosper as a nation. It's by no means clear that Hamilton was wrong.

You live in a country that is a wealthy and powerful superpower thanks in part to "Hamiltonian" policies. If you want to run him down, you ought to say whether you'd prefer to do without that national power and prosperity and take your chances with something else. I'd go further: you live in a country that is wealthy, powerful, united, and free, a country that managed not only to get rid of slavery, but also to put slavery and segregation substantially the past. All that could have been very different if things had gone differently 150 years ago.

Latin America ended up differently. The former Spanish colonies couldn't overcome natural barriers and unite with each other. Local elites retained control and could be ruthless in applying it. Racial divisions created tensions. For the most part Latin American countries didn't industrialize in the 19th and early 20th century. If they were lucky they provided raw materials for richer countries. If they didn't, they didn't have much of anything. If they'd had a Hamilton, things might have been different for them.

If there were farmers who lost their land because of industrialization, that's a bad thing (though it was largely the increasing productivity of agriculture that forced prices down and farmers out), but if slave owners got a little less return on their investment in order to promote domestic industry, was that really unjust? The government taxes alcohol and tobacco more heavily than other products because it judges them to be harmful. I can't see charging 10 bucks for something that costs 10 cents to make, but the general principle is valid. Why wouldn't it apply to slavery?

14 posted on 09/18/2017 3:30:51 PM PDT by x
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To: x

You are right. That’s why France has done so well economically and socialy. It has implemented Hamiltonian mercantilism and centralism far better than we have.


16 posted on 09/18/2017 3:40:29 PM PDT by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: x
At a time when a small minority of colonists took up arms against Great Britain, Alexander Hamilton was among them.

He served as an artillery officer and subsequently on the Staff of General Washington. Like the other senior military and political officers of the new country, he risked possible hanging if captured.

Alexander Hamilton lead an assault on a British redoubt at Yorktown.

He resisted the call for a military takeover of the hapless non-government under the Articles of Confederation.

He was a delegate to the Annapolis convention of 1786 and was largely responsible for the federal convention the next year.

On June 18th of the federal convention he launched a strategic assault on the minds of deadlocked delegates. His all day speech in support of a parliamentary system as an alternative to the Randolph and Paterson Plans shocked his fellow delegates into making the decision to dump the Articles of Confederation and design a new plan of government.

As the motive force behind The Federalist, he defended the Constitution, primarily against NY Governor George Clinton, whose state stood to lose lucrative impost revenue.

As Treasury Secretary he steered the nation from the brink of ruin to a sound financial basis.

It is fair to say that absent the efforts of Alexander Hamilton, the Confederation United States would have soon dissolved with nothing to replace it.

19 posted on 09/18/2017 3:53:12 PM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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