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To: justshutupandtakeit
backward one like Jefferson whose idea of a nation of farmers was not only impossible but would have been a disaster in every conceivable way if implemented

Would this include the non-farmers such as Burr, Trumbull, Pickering, and the rest of the Federalists who wanted to leave the union as early as 1803? In their mercantilistic empires they must have dreamed of at night? Farmers.... that's what we and men like Jefferson are to you, we think differently therefore we must somehow be lesser than such 'learned' men as Hamilton.

122 posted on 07/23/2002 11:31:07 AM PDT by billbears
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To: billbears
Those who wanted to destroy the Union in 1803 where just as misdirected and foolish as those who wanted to leave it in 1861 however, those in 1803 had at least a plausible reason since Jefferson's embargo was destroying their economies while Lincoln had done nothing against the Slaveocracy. It was reacting to its delusions about what he would do.

I am not the one who made farmers into something they are not. That was Jefferson. His fantasy would have been a disaster to farmers and non-farmer alike. Hamilton understood that to have strong viable agriculture one must also have strong viable industry. Who was going to buy the farmers crops? Other farmers? Come on. Plus, Jefferson would have made the oceangoing carrying trade entirely in the ships of foreigners. He believed that a navy was an "aristocratic" institution (hilarious coming from the one true aristocrat of that time) and would lead to foreign involvements and war. Idiotic stuff but he was full of it.

Hamilton came from a lower social status than almost all farmers. However, he could easily see that a nation which did not allow a variety of jobs for the many talents of its citizens would not have a happy or productive citizenry.

BTW Burr was never a Federalist. In fact, he was a candidate who did receive federalist support in the NY governors election in 1804 because some of them believed he would lead the state out of the Union and into an alliance with N.E. Hamilton's opposition to him was one of the final straws which provoked the duel. H. feared Burr would use the office to provoke secession and he opposed that above all.
133 posted on 07/23/2002 1:05:00 PM PDT by justshutupandtakeit
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