We Worship Jefferson, But We Have Become Hamilton's America [Wall Street Journal article]

Wall Street Journal | February 4, 2004 | Cynthia Crossen

[HenryLeeII]

We Worship Jefferson, But We Have Become Hamilton's America

EVERYBODY WHO IS anybody was there -- at least among those 750 or so Americans who adore Alexander Hamilton. Representatives of the Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr factions also turned out in force.

Two hundred years ago this summer, Hamilton died from a single bullet fired by Burr, then America's vice president, in a duel in Weehawken, N.J. Hamilton's early death, at the age of 47, denied him the opportunity -- or aggravation -- of watching America become a Hamiltonian nation while worshipping the gospel according to Thomas Jefferson.

Now, some Hamiltonians have decided to try to elevate their candidate to the pantheon of great early Americans. Last weekend, scholars, descendents and admirers of Hamilton gathered at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan to kick off their campaign and sing the praises of America's first treasury secretary, who created the blueprint for America's future as a mighty commercial, political and military power.

The conference was sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

But the overflow crowd also had to grapple with the unfortunate fact that many Americans have negative impressions of Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps Ezra Pound expressed their feelings most poetically when he described Hamilton as "the Prime snot in ALL American history."

YET, AS ONE HAMILTON acolyte, Edward Hochman, a Paterson, N.J., lawyer, asked the assembled experts: If Hamilton's vision of America "won" in the long run, "why do we love Jefferson?"

"Because," historian John Steele Gordon responded dryly, "most intellectuals love Jefferson and hate markets, and it's mostly intellectuals who write books."

Even Hamilton's detractors, including members of the Aaron Burr Association, concede that he was a brilliant administrator, who understood financial systems better than anyone else in the country. He laid the groundwork for the nation's banks, commerce and manufacturing, and was rewarded by being pictured on the $10 bill. "We can pay off his debts in 15 years," Thomas Jefferson lamented, "but we can never get rid of his financial system."

Jefferson's vision of America was the opposite of Hamilton's. Jefferson saw America as a loose confederation of agricultural states, while Hamilton envisioned a strong federal government guiding a transition to an urban, industrial nation. He is often called the "father of American capitalism" and the "patron saint of Wall Street."

The Hamiltonians have much historical prejudice to overcome. The real Hamilton was a difficult man, to put it mildly. He was dictatorial, imperious and never understood when to keep his mouth shut. "He set his foot contemptuously to work the treadles of slower minds," wrote an American historian, James Schouler, in 1880.

In the turbulent years of America's political birth, naked ambition for power was considered unseemly, except in the military. After the war, Hamilton, a courageous and skillful soldier, grabbed power aggressively and ruthlessly, indifferent to the trail of enemies he left behind. As a political theorist, he was regarded as a plutocrat and monarchist, partly because he favored a presidency with a life term.

JOHN ADAMS, America's second president, dismissed Hamilton as "the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar" and "the Creole" (Hamilton was born in the West Indies, and his parents never married). George Mason, the Virginia statesman, said Hamilton and his machinations did "us more injury than Great Britain and all her fleets and armies."

"Sure, he made mistakes," concedes Doug Hamilton, a Columbus, Ohio, salesman for IBM, who calculates he is Hamilton's fifth great-grandson. "He was only human. But family is family."

Hamilton had at least one, and probably several, adulterous affairs (Martha Washington named her randy tomcat "Hamilton"). He was also a social snob and dandy. Hamilton, wrote Frederick Scott Oliver in his 1920 biography, "despised . . . people like Jefferson, who dressed ostentatiously in homespun." He "belonged to an age of silk stockings and handsome shoe buckles."

Historians find Hamilton something of a cipher. He didn't have the opportunity, as Adams and Jefferson did in their long retirements, to "spin, if not outright alter, the public record," noted Stephen Knott, author of "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth."

Joanne Freeman, Yale history professor and editor of a collection of Hamilton's writings, agreed that "there are huge voids in our knowledge of him." Consequently, his legacy has been claimed by various political interests. Among his illustrious admirers are George Washington, Jefferson Davis, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding and the French statesman Talleyrand.

At the 1932 Democratic convention, however, Franklin Roosevelt blamed "disciples of Alexander Hamilton" for the Great Depression.

By the time of Hamilton's death, he had dropped out of public life and returned to his law practice. Even so, wrote Frederick Oliver, "the world mourned him with a fervor that is remarkable, considering the speed with which it proceeded to forget him."

[justshutupandtakeit]

Nice summary but I would modify a couple of points.

Hamilton's view of the economy was that it should be a balanced one not dependent on any one of the sectors. He did not believe in a "high" tariff. The first tariffs were about 15% and were almost entirely a revenue tariff. What protections they provided for domestic industry were real but they were designed to fund the fedgov which meant they had to be kept fairly low so as to provide adequate revenue by not closing off imports.

Funding the debt had a far more important feature than "prestige" and was intended to provide a source of new capital. Essentially the word of the nation was used to induce investment which would provide the base of a money supply depleted by the chronic imbalance of payments with Britain. We were drained of specie until the funding was established then our bonds become as good as gold.

Most of those who lost due to the debt assumption did so because of the foot-dragging of the democRATs of the day. Had the program been passed quickly the speculators would not have been able to act. The widows and soldiers who held on to their debt and bet ON the country rather than AGAINST the country would have profitted handsomely.

Hamilton's view of man was the standard Christian view that he was a fallen creature. However, he spent most of his life attempting to educate his fellow citizenry and was perhaps the most widely read man in America over the period of 1775-1804 through his incessant writing for newspapers. No man devoted more of his time, wealth or energy to establishing and protecting the Republic than Alexander Hamilton.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Madison realized his error when the democRAT Congress refused to recharter the Bank. Hamilton was right and he eventually realized it as did most of the rational democRATs (always a minority) forcing them to recharter the Bank under Monroe. Jefferson implicitly admitted that H was correct as well since he (apparently the bargain agreed to with H to throw the election of 1800 to J) left his financial program in place unchanged.

Interesting that you should speak so ill of a man who devoted his entire adult life to the strengthening of the United States of America. Shows pretty clearly what your values are.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Nonsense, Hamilton consistently maintained that the consent of the people was of vital importance in establishing the government and never resembled the caricature so hideously and falsely drawn by you. Many of his "proposals" were incorporated into the Constitution and were in no way "counterrevolutionary."

Jefferson was the one "served" by others not Hamilton. In fact, H was a founder of the New York Society for the Manumission of Slaves which, if successful, would have freed those serving the petty tyrants Jefferson's class was composed of.

Who was the real Aristocrat here?

[Deliberator]

"These three qualifications excepted, the power to raise money is plenary, and indefinite; and the objects to which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive, than the payment of the public debts and the providing for the common defense and 'general welfare.'"

Rubbish---this interpretation makes the rest of Section 8 redundant.

Thanks for the quotation! Hamilton goes up on my dart board.

[tpaine]

views on democracy:

J) Man is "perfectable," and therefore capable of governing himself.


H) Distrusted people's ability to govern. Believed in elite rule far more than the Jeffersonians.
46 tpaine


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You are usually on top of things ... that post ... you must be sleepy or have the flu. JustshutupandTakeIt has done a superb job.
90 bvw


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Hamilton's view of man was the standard Christian view that he was a fallen creature.

However, he spent most of his life attempting to educate his fellow citizenry and was perhaps the most widely read man in America over the period of 1775-1804 through his incessant writing for newspapers. No man devoted more of his time, wealth or energy to establishing and protecting the Republic than Alexander Hamilton.
101 -justi-

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I don't 'get it' guys.. Why do you detest Jeff & set an elitist like Alex on a pedestal? They were both flawed men, as are we all.. --- But one upheld the principles of a constitution of liberty, while the other didn't much care for those basics.

Sorry, I think the Jeffersonian republic we began to lose around 1900 was a much better system than the one we find ourselves in now.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hamilton believed in a government with divided powers. That was the appeal of the British government for him NOT its monarchy. He persistently demanded that the House be made up of members elected upon the broadest sufferage possible for that day.

Funny how many complain about the direct election of the Senate against the "Hamiltonian" election through the legislatures. Funny also how the Hillarys of the world complain against the undemocratic College of Electors (utterly Hamiltonian.) And it is funny how the hue and cry goes up about the excessive democracy which now loots the taxpayers (just like H feared.)

Yet the man who supported this extension of democracy oblivious to the cupidity and greed of the people is lionized by "conservatives?"

[CobaltBlue]

Hard money means precious money - gold or silver or platinum.

I dunno how much cash you've ever carried in your pocket, but I need circulating hard money like a hole in the head. Most of the time I use my debit card, but I take out a few hundred every month to hand out to the kids for lunch money and bus money, leave for tips, etc. Do you honestly want to carry $1 dollar gold pieces? Not me.

Paper money is backed money. Probably the oldest money is similar to the Muslim hawala money, or in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh they call it hundi.

You hand over your money to a money man, who gives you a receipt, and you travel with the receipt and when you get to where you're going, you collect the cash, less interest.

They've been doing it for thousands of years in places like Iraq, using clay tablets under the Sumerians.

In theory that money is 100% backed, but somehow over time the bankers figured out that they only had to hold back about 40% reserves in storage and circulate the rest. If there is a "run" then you go to a friend who fronts you the money until the people that owe you money pay you back.

It's a business, like any other business, only you're selling security and the time value of money, the opportunity costs foregone by spending your money immediately.

Countries with 100% backed money are far less prosperous than countries with fractional reserve banking.

Our own money is still backed. Every so often I look on the US Treasury web site to see how much gold we have, and calculate its value using spot prices. The Treasury calculates the value on an artificial price which is entirely too low. And then I compare that to M1, and every time I've done that it's been backed at around 40%. Haven't done it in a couple of years, but used to do it regularly every time I got into one of these discussions.

One reason I quit is that a lot of gold bugs are conspiranoiacs, so they'd argue that the Treasury was lying about the amount of gold in storage, or that the Federal Reserve was lying about M1, and I don't care to get into that type of discussion.

At any rate, Adam Smith didn't think that money needed to be backed by gold, he thought it could be backed by any valuable asset. You gave an example, the cargo of a ship is used to back a bill of lading which can be discounted. That bill of lading is a form of money, and the ship's cargo is backing.

[tpaine]

Post your proof that Jeff supported "this extension of democracy oblivious to the cupidity and greed of the people"...

And -- challenge my conclusions on the issues as posted at 61 & 74, if you can..

[justshutupandtakeit]

Jefferson is filled with contradictions. My high regard for him has declined as I learn more about him and his era. He was the proto-type "limosine Liberal" and perhaps the most overrated president we have ever had.

He should have stuck to cabinet making.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Washington's strategy was to let the British keep the cities since that encouraged the lassitude of the commanders and kept their army from being useful. Hamilton was the greatest American ever to call NY city his home. It was also on the wrong side during the Civil War being RATrun and Union troops fresh from the battle of Gettysburg were sent in to control the rioting and killing unleashed by the RAT gangs against the Blacks living there.

NY during Hamilton's time was under the control of George Clinton and a stronghold of states' rights and anti-federalism.

[Alberta's Child]

Maybe his strategy was to let the British keep the cities because most of the people in those cities were British supporters anyway.

It's hard to tell what Washington's strategy might have been during that war -- the colonials lost most of the battles they fought against the British.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Those who took part in the Whiskey Rebellion were the most ignorant and uncivilized elements of our society. That part of Pennsylvania was populated by those who did not want ANY government and were used to having their way. They had little if any understanding of any political philosophy and their revolt was motivated by such ignorance. There is nothing admirable in that revolt or those people who were universally described and slovenly, lazy, poverty-stricken and backward in every respect.

As the quotation you posted clearly shows the tax was constitutional since it was "uniform throughout the United States." Its affecting the people of one area more than others did not make it unconstitutional any more than the fact that the tariffs affected different areas differently as well. For example, people in Western Penn. were hardly affected by the tariffs at all while the wealthy Virginians paid a disproportionate share.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Washington and Hamilton "picked" no one. They were faced with open rebellion and attacks on federal officers only in Pennsylvania. Kentucky was still part of Virginia and was not going to secede from Virginia.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Except for being incorrect about the motivations of Washington and Hamilton.

[Alberta's Child]

The excise tax was originally passed in 1791. It was lifted in Virginia and North Carolina (I believe this was the result of action on the part of these state legislators) long before the Whiskey Rebellion occurred in 1794.

As someone else pointed out here, it wasn't just an issue of taxation -- for many of those "ignorant and uncivilized elements" of our society, whiskey was their only "currency" for trading.

If I were a farmer living out in the Appalachian highlands during the 1790s and I were told that the U.S. Government had just passed an excise tax on the whiskey I produced, I could certainly see myself asking, "Hey -- why not pass an excise tax on tobacco or cotton? Oh, wait a minute . . . We couldn't possibly do that -- those are the things that all you guys in Congress grow on your lands.

There is nothing admirable in that revolt or those people who were universally described and slovenly, lazy, poverty-stricken and backward in every respect.

And yet this "revolt" of theirs has simmered under the surface even to this day. Tom Wolfe chronicled the history of this cultural divide in the eastern states, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the moonshiners of the 1950s, in his classic essay "The Last American Hero" about NASCAR legend Junior Johnson. After reading that essay, I've got to be honest with you -- those folks seemed to have more of the American spirit than most of the people I know.

One of the most interesting points that Wolfe raised was that during the Second World War there were more Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers from towns in Wilkes County, North Carolina (Junior Johnson's moonshining territory, with a population of no more than 30,000 or so) than to soldiers from New York City (Alexander Hamilton's home town, with a population of several million).

[PISANO]

He may have been the genius behind our banking system but any one who is for life tenure of the Executive, which of course means KING, loses my vote. Give me the likes of George Washington ANYDAY.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hamilton was not Jewish. His mother was married to a man who MAY have been Jewish (Lavien, Levine or some other spelling) but his father was not him. Alexander was illegitimate by court finding. He was declared in official court documents as "an obscene child." When Rachel's husband obtained a divorce she was forbidden from remarrying
and could not marry James Hamilton, the father of her last two sons.

Jackson's financial and economic views were ridiculous and his destruction of the 2d National Bank caused an economic collapse. Only the fortuitous gold finds in California allowed the country to resume the path of economic growth.

Gold or any other metal cannot support a growing economy since its supplies cannot increase sufficiently to stave of recession/depression. No nation has ever maintained a gold standard through a major war. Its utility is an ancient supersition thankfully discarded along with its medical contemporary, bleeding.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I am not sure if that is an accurate reading of Hamilton's beliefs since I have not seen that specific contention in his writings. It could be since the phrase "general welfare" was put into the constitution for a purpose. The opposite reading means that it is irrelevent. Why would it have been put in there if there were not a general welfare to be concerned about?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Exactly right. Expect attacks watch your ankles. With the "right" of secession the constitution is meaningless.

[patriot_wes]

Two hundred years ago this summer, Hamilton died from a single bullet fired by Burr, then America's vice president, in a duel in Weehawken, N.J.

One of the few good things that ever happened in NJ. He was a traitor to citizen freedoms and his central bank idea has been the bain of our republic ever since! (I don't recall him attending the NRA marksman training class either)