Conservatives Are The Real RINO’s

Leo McNeil ^ | January 5, 2015 | Leo McNeil

[ek_hornbeck]

Conservative didn’t mean the same thing in the early 19th century that it does today. Neither did liberal. An early 19th century conservative was a monarchist if he was in Europe and if he was in America he believed in that sort of system adapted to the election of a President and Congress. While obviously we did not invite a member of the Royal family to serve as our King, Hamilton and the conservatives did want to adopt that system of government.

I agree with your assessment of Hamilton, he was a conservative in the sense of supporting a system of government modeled on the British monarchy, minus the monarch. He was also a mercantilist (hence the trade protectionism and the support for federally-funded infrastructure). Mercantilists were the conservatives, classical liberals were the radicals.

However, this observation defeats the whole premise of your argument that Hamilton is the precursor to progressives, populists, and radicals. Support for tariffs and federal public works (i.e. roads and bridges) is not equivalent to support for a welfare state or for social radicalism. Otherwise, you're stuck with making the absurd claim that the British monarchy is the principal inspiration for LBJ's Great Society (and reversing the original definition of Left vs. Right Wing during the time of the French Revolution).

Apart from your (IMO confused) remarks about Hamilton and the political spectrum in the late 18th/19th century US, I agree with the main premise of your article: that conservatives are the odd men out in the Republican party today, and have been so for decades. Unfortunately, Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Bush II and nominees like Dole, McCain, Romney, etc. are the rule, not the exception.