That government became a hideous beast as Hamilton's programs were expanded by his direct political heirs. If you doubt me, go make a visit to Washington sometime soon and count the number of agencies you see.
Just repeating a mantra does not make it true.
Your own actions and arguments in this thread seem to indicate that you believe otherwise.
Government policies can be very productive in economic development.
In rare and restrained cases, yes they can. But you still miss the point entirely. Even the best of government economic intervention policies is prone to expansion into something far more hideous as it slips away from the watch of more prudent and virtuous persons. And as surely even you can admit, the further we moved away from the founder's generation, the more hideous and expansive our government became.
And we have never had ONE economy which was not government regulated in many ways.
Citing the simple presence of intervention does not make that same intervention any more legitimate or prudent. That is literally akin to the circular absurdity of using regulation to "prove" itself when it is the matter of dispute to begin with.
Hamilton's policies were directly responsible for the development of the industrial capitalism which defeated the Slavers.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. As for the real reason why the north's industrial mercantilism succeeded in the war? Simple - industrial economies by their very nature are better equipped toward war making than economies of other types.
There was no "infant industry" protection during Hamilton's time nor after until the period following the war of 1812 when newly developed (because of the embargoes and War) industries began to demand them.
Actually, most economists identify 1808 as the changing year toward widescale protectionism. As for protection of infant industries, it's earliest recorded proposal is in fact in the inaugural session of Congress by the Pennsylvania delegation. As a result the 1789 tariff, which was initially intended for revenue at a 5% across the board, found protective measures tacked onto it. Massachussetts and Pennsylvania reps added ad valorem protective rates on carriages, nails, iron, glass, and hemp, the highest being triple the revenue rate at 15%. Oh, and BTW, your hero Alex was indeed supportive of infant industry protection per his 1791 "Report on Manufactures." Hamilton espoused protective policies at length:
"This is derived from its supposed tendency to give a monopoly of advantages to particular classes, at the expense of the rest of the community, who, it is affirmed, would be able to procure the requisite supplies of manufactured articles on better terms from foreigners, than from our own Citizens, and who, it is alleged, are reduced to the necessity of paying an enhanced price for whatever they want, by every measure, which obstructs thc free competition of foreign commodities. It is not an unreasonable supposition, that measures, which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices and it is not to be denied that such is the effect, in a number of Cases; but the fact does not uniformly correspond with the theory. A reduction of prices has, in several instances immediately succeeded the establishment of a domestic manufacture. Whether it be that foreign manufactures endeavour to supplant, by underselling our own, or whatever else be the cause, the effect has been such as is stated, and the reverse of what might have been expected. But though it were true, that the immediate and certain effect of regulations controlling the competition of foreign with domestic fabrics was an increase of Price, it is universally true, that the contrary is the ultimate effect with every successful manufacture. When a domestic manufacture has attained to perfection, and has engaged in the prosecution of it a competant number of Persons, it invariably becomes cheaper. Being free from the heavy charges which attend the importation of foreign commodities, it can be afforded, and accordingly seldom or never fails to be sold Cheaper, in process of time, than was the foreign Article for which it is a substitute."
Monopolies are rarely, if ever, the result of protectionist policies.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. Thus your argument may be rejected.
Tariffs do not provide money to industries. Tariff proceeds goes to the government.
Not true. A protective tariff mathematically shifts money to both the government and the protected industries. This is a result of the supply line's curviture. When a country imposes a tariff upon exports, the tariff's ammount is mathematically added to the pre-tariff price, thus raising the price line and taking with it a segment of the consumer surplus obtained under the previous price. Since that segment of the consumer surplus is divided by the supply curve, it ends up going to more than one place. That to the left of the supply curve is redistributed into the producer surplus by the shift in the price line. That to the right of the supply curve up until the demand curve's intersect is split further. Part of it goes into the government as revenue and the remainder is mathematically lost dead weight. Thus both the government and the protected industry gain financially from the tariff.
You should distinguish between justification and explanation wrt to my comments on welfarism. They were accurate. Many policy makers would rather see government funds spent of pittiful handouts to the welfare class than on arming one half the working class to defend the capitalist class from the other half.
Your assumption that such conditions would arise without welfare is unfounded and fundamentally marxian.
It is a successful policy, hence its universal popularity.
Ad populum attempts to rationalize a policy do not constitute demonstrations of success.
Calmly awaiting the names of these Agrarian economic heavyweights.
Considering that this is the first time you have specifically asked for any names I find it unusual that you would be waiting for anything. Nevertheless I will provide them shortly when I have access to my bookcase at home.
Of course, almost any man's speech before the Constitutional Convention would be close to their most significant speech.
It's certainly the one that Alex is most remembered for! A close second in Hamiltonian literature, of course, is the "Report on Manufactures" in which, contrary to your claims, he advocates infant industry protection.
I have never denied the speech H made indicated his belief that the government of England was the best possible government or that he realized it was not possible in America which would have a Republic or nothing. How did you get the idea I denied this?
You are constructing straw men. You explicitly denied Hamilton's monarchist leanings, not the equivocative jumble of conditional circumstances you just posted above. The famous speech from the constitutional convention is direct and undeniable proof that your previous claim, like so many of the things you state, was a hastily spoken factual error. No ammount of excuse-making, downplaying, or semantical bullsh*t artistry will ever make that speech go away. The fact is he said it and you previously claimed that he did not. That makes you wrong.
I have no inclination to refuse to accept Hamilton for what he was.
Then why do you persist in denying what he was by making factual erronious statements about some of his most basic actions and beliefs? Why did you deny he had monarchist leanings when it is recorded that he espoused them? Why did you deny that he had protectionist leanings when it is recorded that he espoused them? Your Hamilton seems to be a creation of your mind as it conflicts with the factual Hamilton on a regular basis.
How absurd, the Declaration was nothing but a rhetorical device designing to explain why we were rebelling, it had nothing to do with governing.
It was also a legally enacting device to create the United States. It did not set up or design a government and it did not enact a government policy, but it did accomplish two legal acts: (1) it formally separated the colonies from britain and (2) it formally defined the union between those colonies as new states.
Even a second-rater like RH Lee must have understood that.
Ad hominem indulgences against Lee prove nothing of his arguments, which you are obviously unfamiliar with considering that they explicitly describe the pre-federalist union that existed in the wake of the declaration.