Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Hemingway's Ghost
Defects in morals aside, Alexander Hamilton was extraordinarily talented and dedicated to the cause of American liberty.

Hamilton fought in the Revolution, and, as author of the Federalist Papers, he helped explain the Constitution to the public and later generations and get it ratified at the time. Hamilton also put the US on a sound financial basis as Treasury Secretary for Washington and was highly regarded and successful as a practicing attorney in New York.

Even if Hamilton was more admirable in parts than likable as a whole person, blaming him for today's partisanship is a reach too far. All democracies have political parties, with intermittent bouts of seemingly pointless bickering between them. Given the passage of time, surely Hamilton has at most a remote and slight responsibility if any for the sharpness of today's partisan politics.

Moreover, Hamilton deserves credit not criticism for opposition to the French Revolution, the issue that catalyzed the formation of the first American party system. Edmund Burke similarly broke with his contemporaries and became the founder of modern conservatism.

As with Burke, conservatives today owe a debt to Alexander Hamilton for opposing the destructive radicalism of the French Revolution. And I am surely not the only one to see our current magnificent President as in part an heir to Hamilton as a New Yorker dedicated to American liberty and greatness.

11 posted on 12/20/2019 8:38:14 AM PST by Rockingham
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]


To: Rockingham
He was a remarkable man. If for nothing else, we are in debt to him for his many Federalist Papers.

In Praise of Alexander Hamilton, Part I of V.

21 posted on 12/20/2019 12:20:44 PM PST by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson