Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
Tallyrand was just a crook hoping he had the US over a barrel. He used any method he could to pressure the US including enlisting his Fifth Column, the Jeffersonians, to undermine Washington.
And so is insinuating that it gave Alexander Hamilton, a disgraced unelected former cabinet secretary with no office of his own and no legal authority to do much of anything on the president's behalf, the "right" to step in his place and begin stirring up trouble.
Nor is your comparison to Jefferson a valid one. Jefferson was, after all, Vice President and LEGALLY ELECTED as such. Hamilton was NOTHING after he resigned in 1795 and had no right to act.
As to Washington, he was no more a dupe than Theoden. But like Theoden, he also had a Wormtongue.
Hamilton was the principle author of the greatest political writings since Aristotle
Since that bizarre and almost comical assessment is coming from somebody who fetishizes over Hamilton, it must be taken with a heavy grain of salt. As previously noted, NOBODY credible in the economics profession takes Hamilton seriously today (and don't try to backtrack on that either - YOU called him the father of modern capitalism, and now you're trying to separate him from economics?). Hamilton is tolerated by Keynesians and adored by the LaRouchies, but with each of those "endorsements" I need only note res ipsa loquitur.
Burr served under Benedict Arnold it is true. Perhaps the greatest service he ever gave his nation was saving Hamilton’s life when under fire. H was a militia artillery officer and B an aide to Gen. Putnam during the fighting around New York.
Defending Hamilton from Jeffersonian slanders and falsehoods is not giving him “carte blanche” for any shortcomings.
It should be noted that Washington (who was hyper concerned about integrity and honesty) developed a disregard of Burr almost immediately and dismissed him from his staff after only a month or so. He caught him in some disreputable scheme.
The Jay Treaty was no more an alliance than any other treaty we signed at the time.
Not true. None of the other alliances gave preference and exclusivity clauses for the West Indies trade.
The Jay Treaty's date - 1796 - also places it smack in the middle of the "Napoleonic Wars" era - the period of nearly continuous hostility between Britain and France lasting from the start of the French Revolution and subsequent war in 1792 to Waterloo in 1815.
1) Nothing was illegal about the cabinet seeking advice from Hamilton. None of them had to take it.
2)Washington remained in close contact with his underlings when he returned to Virginia.
3)We were in an undeclared war with France while Jefferson was VP and he was scheming with the French for much of that time.
4) Theoden was UNDER THE SPELL of Wormtongue returning to his senses only after he left. His enemies accused Washington of being under the spell of his staff (Hamilton) even as early as the Revolutionary War.
5) I never called H “the father of modern capitalism” though I will call him the father of modern government finance in America.
Except it’s not a “slander” to note the fact that Hamilton paid a guy thousands of dollars over a two year period to prostitute his wife. It’s documented fact that only a Hamilton fetishist would attempt to excuse away. Even Callender’s most salacious attacks on Hamilton - and the Reynolds affair was the prime example - have generally born out to be truthful.
1) Nothing was illegal about the cabinet seeking advice from Hamilton. None of them had to take it.
No, but it was (1) certainly insubordinate to Adams and (2) his private schemings to foment war in his letters to Wolcott were indeed criminal under his very own Sedition Act.
We were in an undeclared war with France while Jefferson was VP and he was scheming with the French for much of that time.
First, note the keyword "Undeclared," meaning it was not a legally recognized war. Second, no less a source than Adams himself was also "scheming" with the French to the point that he successfully defused the whole thing by sending an ambassador to them against Hamilton's wishes. The difference though is that both Adams and Jefferson were elected officers of the government when they were "scheming" with the French, and thus had both the legal immunities of sovereignty and the legal prerogatives of their offices. Hamilton was a private citizen when he was "scheming" to foment a war with France.
Theoden was UNDER THE SPELL of Wormtongue
Well, Jefferson did not call Hamilton's manipulations a "reign of witches" for nothing.
5) I never called H “the father of modern capitalism” though I will call him the father of modern government finance in America.
Your statement: "None of his enemies came close to producing state papers of such immense importance to the development the modern capitalist economy as were those of Hamilton"
You then backtracked and suggested Hamilton was never strictly an economist, despite directly attributing the "modern capitalist economy" to him.
Provided always that the said American vessels do carry and land their Cargoes in the United States only, it being expressly agreed and declared that during the Continuance of this article, the United States will prohibit and restrain the carrying any Melasses, Sugar, Coffee, Cocoa or Cotton in American vessels, either from His Majesty's Islands or from the United States, to any part of the World, except the United States, reasonable Sea Stores excepted. Provided also, that it shall and may be lawful during the same period for British vessels to import from the said Islands into the United States, and to export from the United States to the said Islands, all Articles whatever being of the Growth, Produce or Manufacture of the said Islands, or of the United States respectively, which now may, by the Laws of the said States, be so imported and exported.
The treaty also prevented American vessels from carrying West Indies trade anywhere but to the United States and back.
But it is expressly agreed, that the Vessels of the United States shall not carry any of the articles exported by them from the said British Territories to any Port or Place, except to some Port or Place in America, where the same shall be unladen, and such Regulations shall be adopted by both Parties, as shall from time to time be found necessary to enforce the due and faithful
In other words, it basically gave the British free reign to aggressively pursue and maintain the very same colonial trading pattern that Hamilton disingenuously cited as a justification for his protective policies in the Report on Manufactures.
On top of that it also obliged the United States to pay certain British claims on merchant vessels seized as prizes of war by France and sold in the U.S., thereby giving favoritism to Britain over France in their ongoing war rather than maintaining a position of true neutrality.
Hamilton's program was more state capitalism than true mercantilism
It's actually known as neo-mercantilism...basically old mercantilism with more refined-sounding arguments, or mercantilism that emerged in the wake of the Wealth of Nations as an attempted counterargument. Hamilton is actually considered one of the founding fathers of the neo-mercantilist school, along with Frederick List (who he directly inspired). His 3 "Great" Reports are considered to be some of the first formal attempts to rebut Smith, particularly the Report on Manufactures.
Capitalism NEVER developed as Free Markets and there has never been a capitalist system which was not heavily influenced by the state.
Oh really? Tell that to Hong Kong in the Cowperthwaite era of the mid 20th century.
Don't pretend that the core of his opposition to the national debt assumption program was not the land speculators whose schemes depended upon the debt remaining cheap.
Actually, the most vocal opposition came from the states that had already paid off most of their debt obligations and objected to assuming debt from the states that had been financially irresponsible over the previous decade. In other words, bailouts. Funny how 200 years later we still have the same problem.
Nothing quoted shows this to be an alliance. Nor did it change much.
Hamilton’s program was never focused upon specie outflow prevention or specie inflow promotion as was the intent of mercantilism.
His reports were never intended to “refute” Smith but to provide a rationale for funding the government and developing the economy. Among the first true economic studies they showed his genius for gathering of facts and data never before attempted in this nation. It was REAL economics not academic theorizing and all economists realize this and hail them for the groundbreaking works they were.
Hong Kong was not a nation and developed nothing new. It was a colony.
States which had paid or abrogated their debts were specifically addressed in the debt assumption program. Some, like Virginia, were even given MORE credit than deserved in order to get their votes. Most of the opposition came from land speculators hammered by the increase in debt prices.
There is no similiarity to today. And the opposition was in no way “responsible”. Hamilton’s opposition was the LEFT wing of American politics happy to have state issued money, legislatures which impaired contracts and debt abrogation.
Hamilton never schemed for war with England. That is an outright falsehood. He was against ANY war at that time because: 1) we could not afford it; 2) we were totally unprepared militarily for one; 3) it was specifically this fear which made him opposed to Adams because he feared him blundering into war with France. Not only that but he opposed war even though it would have given him command of our armies which he had always wanted being a military man at heart.
Adams was not “scheming” with the French. Jefferson had NO authority to scheme with the French as VP. Unless the President is removed from office VP has no official role in foreign relations outside what the President asks him to do.
Nor was Hamilton in any way subordinate to Adams before his appointment as Washington’s deputy commander hence he could not have been “subordinate”. After his appointment he did as told. You would have the same right as Hamilton to respond to cabinet members queries and requests for help.
Any relation between Jefferson’s rhetoric and the truth was strictly accidental.
I never said what you claimed so there was no need for me to “backtrack” and your quote of my comment shows exactly that. While there were very few true economists at that time Hamilton was the best the US had and few of his statements or beliefs have ever been shown to be theoretically incorrect even by today’s standards.
2. Adams got us out of the Quasi War by sending a peace mission to France under William Vans Murray with instructions to negotiate. The mission was successful and was carried out against vocal protests of the Hamilton-controlled elements of the cabinet, directly prompting Adams to sack his Secretaries of State and War.
3. By engaging in foreign policy as Vice President, Jefferson was no more guilty than Washington or Adams when they took unstated powers upon themselves as President. If Adams disapproved, it was strictly between him and Jefferson to resolve. And NOWHERE was Hamilton empowered to do anything of any sort involving the foreign policy of the United States after he resigned in disgrace from the Treasury Department.
Hamilton’s program was never focused upon specie outflow prevention or specie inflow promotion as was the intent of mercantilism.
Wrong. Hamilton's reports are full of dire warnings about the "distressing drains on our specie" and the how we must stop the "money of foreigners," brought in by debt finance, from being "reexported to defray the expense of an extraordinary consumption of foreign luxury."
His reports were never intended to “refute” Smith but to provide a rationale for funding the government and developing the economy.
Also wrong. Extensive textual analysis has been conducted on the early drafts of Hamilton's reports prepared by Tench Coxe, revealing direct textual references to the Wealth of Nations that were later trimmed so as to make them less overt.
Among the first true economic studies they showed his genius for gathering of facts and data never before attempted in this nation
Also wrong. There is almost zero "data" in the Treasury reports, unless you count a simple cursory listing of the current debt in the Report on Public Credit and a few recommended tariff rates and subsidies in the Report on Manufactures. It's all his own theoretical arguments, and rather poor ones when evaluated through the lens of modern free market economics. In fact, the Treasury Department records under Hamilton are embarrassingly sparse and mark the beginning of a statistical "dark age" for economic historians from roughly 1789 to 1816, during which trade and commercial records were not well kept, were almost never reported, and now have to be estimated using statistical approximations from private sources such as Blodget's "Economica" and Pitkin's "Statistical View" of American commerce. There are even studies by modern academics devoted to the sole purpose of reconstructing the missing years of commercial data starting at the outset of Hamilton's reign.
Hong Kong was not a nation and developed nothing new. It was a colony.
Also wrong. Hong Kong went from an economic backwater with almost no population and ZERO natural resources in an area smaller than Washington, DC at the end of WWII to one of the largest and most vibrant commercial centers in the world in barely three decades. It did so due to an intentional laissez-faire economic policy. And its "colony" status put it in the crosshairs of an immeasurably greater threat than anything colonial America ever faced: Maoist China sitting right on its front doorstep. During the peak of the Cold War, Hong Kong even had to keep an airforce on the runway with engines running 24/7 in preparation for emergency takeoff because they had only minutes to get in the air if China decided to invade. Hamilton never even dreamed of a threat that real or that immediate from a hostile foreign power, though he certainly tried to instigate an unnecessary war with at least one of them.
It is NOT, however, to make patently counterfactual claims about his record. The guy was a protectionist Anglophile with little regard for any authority but his own. He openly stated his protectionist beliefs at several points across his lifetime, and he made no secret of his support for the favoritism that the Jay Treaty gave to a U.S.-British partnership in the West Indies trade. Britain got concessions that no other trading partner received, and they were plainly intended to exclude American commerce from those trading partners...even to the point of provoking a wholly unnecessary war.
Hamilton was the best the US had and few of his statements or beliefs have ever been shown to be theoretically incorrect even by today’s standards.
Oh really?
"A fourth argument, one that was made by Alexander Hamilton and continues to be repeated down to the present, is that free trade would be fine if all other countries practiced free trade but that, so long as they do not, the United States cannot afford to. This argument has no validity whatsoever, either in principle or in practice. Other countries that impose restrictions on international trade do hurt us. But they also hurt themselves. Aside from the three cases just considered, if we impose restrictions in turn, we simply add to the harm to ourselves and also harm them as well. Competition in masochism and sadism is hardly a prescription for sensible international economic policy" - Milton Friedman
There is NO evidence that Hamilton wanted war with France and TONS of evidence that he was desperate to avoid one. He admired the English constitution and understood the affinity between our people and the British. This is an old, hackneyed lie when, in fact, H was half French and French was his first language. He had many friends from his military days who were French, was president of the Society of the Cincinnati which allowed French officers to join and was even the refuge for LaFayette’s son when the murderers were in power in France.
He was very afraid that the French desire to conquer the world would bring the US into its sights as it did.
Adams had been trying to negotiate for years but the French would have none of it. Only after realizing that Hamilton was organizing our defense and would lead it did his wishes bear fruit. Hamilton’s opposition was not to peace but because he did not wish to see the US humiliated again as it had been when Marshall, Pickering and Gerry had been sent earlier in Adams administration.
Jefferson was playing footsie with the most deadly enemy facing the US. Much like if Biden was secretly undermining foreign policy with al Queda. Contemptible.
No competent authority believes the Constitution is limited to explicit powers and even Jefferson knew that is the case.
Friedman’s opinion does not negate the FACT that Hamilton’s program was designed to fund the government. It was not a speculative endeavor but a practical one. There was no other practicable means of funding. It was not principally an ECONOMIC policy at all but a POLITICAL means of funding the government.
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