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No one had a better understanding of the Constitution or a better legal mind than Alexander Hamilton. Few had as poor an understanding of the same than Jefferson.

gotta take exception to that one. what fuels your love of hamilton? big government, centralization of power, federal spending, presidency for life....

perhaps those very reasons are why I side with Jefferson.

[justshutupandtakeit]

My love of Hamilton is of the last two yrs. after I actually took the time to learn about his life and his achievements.
He essentially gave his life for his new country. From the late teens till its end he was on the front lines of the fight for freedom.

Immediately he became a spokesman for the Revolutionary cause who was so effective that the British tried to bribe him over to his side.

He spent the last of his college money given to him by his friends in the Islands to outfit an artillary unit in the militia. His training of it made it so effective than it came to the notice of Washington after saving him from being captured by the British.

He was the chief aide to Washington for 5 yrs and was essentially his auxillary brain. Washington trusted him implicitly and needed only to give him rudimentary instructions for a task to be accomplished. In fact, he wrote Washington's Farewell Address.

He not only was at the Constitutional Convention but gave the longest speech there and at the connivance of Washington the last.

He changed the NY constitutional convention from 2-1 against to adopting the constitution.

He wanted to make the United States a strong nation, a modern nation not a weak, 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.

He wrote 2/3s of the greatest work of political philosophy ever written by an American.

His financial program immediately made the credit of the nation the strongest in the world and was so successful that Jefferson left it alone (after opposing it with every lie conceivable) upon achieving office and when the lunatic Republicans allowed the National Bank to die Monroe had to have it rechartered. That is how important it was to the economic and financial health of the nation and government. His opponents never understood it and reverted to outright lies about its working and necessity.

Hamilton was for a strong military and understood international power far better than his enemies. He knew that without a strong government the nation would be reconquered by Britian or portions by the other European powers on this continent. After yrs. of Jeffersonian neglect and disregard of the military the British burned Washington with a few thousand men since we had no army to speak of or navy. Had it seriously wanted to reconquer the country or pick off portions it probably could have.

He was a brilliant military man. A lawyer whom even Marshall revered. Founded the first bank in NY, founded the NY Post- the oldest newpaper in the country.

I could go on and on about the achievements and life of Hamilton. He was a man of incomparable integrity and bravery neither of which can be said of Jefferson.