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The creation of the Constitution required that a variety of different plans and sketches be offered and compared with each other. Given that the British government had more or less served as a model for all American state governments, it was inevitable that one plan would follow the British example more closely. And it was all the more inevitable that someone would propose a strong government plan after the chaos of the Articles of Confederation.

The question was how Hamilton behaved when he was in the government and in positions of responsibility. On the whole he performed admirably, taking steps to put the country's financial house in order and building a sound basis for future development.

Politics in the early days of the Republic required the balancing of centralizing and decentralizing tendencies. A statesman would recognize this. An ideologue does not. Jefferson was a statesman in office and an ideologue in opposition and retirement.

The model presented by so many here of libertarian Jeffersonians and statist Hamiltonians does ignore the repression exercised by slaveholders. To be sure, such slaveowners could be Federalists or Jeffersonians, Whigs or Democrats, but here, as in the past, the tendency has been to link Jeffersonianism with the South, with agrarianism and in the end -- rightly or wrongly -- with secession and the Confederacy. Make these associations and one saddles the Democrats with some unsavory baggage, of the sort that the party in fact became weighed down with as time went on. And it does call the libertarian Jeffersonian vs. statist Hamiltonian scheme into question.

What also gets left out of Metcalf's and Di Lorenzo's picture is an understanding of just why Lincoln found Clay's ideas so captivating. It wasn't that he wanted a larger government for its own sake or to oppress people. Rather, he wanted a system that would open the doors of opportunity to effort and talent and free people from drudgery and subservience. He saw how economic development had helped him and this way and wished the same for others. This may or may not have been a good idea, and Lincoln may or may not have found good methods to implement it. But his reasons do deserve to be mentioned and taken more seriously. The ways in which planter societies oppressed and Lincoln's plan liberated ordinary people shouldn't be glossed over.

Doubtless, agrarian societies do have charms amidst the hardships, but libertarians and capitalists fail to recognize their own fathers when they attack men like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln. For better or for worse, it was men of this stripe who created commercial, industrial, capitalist America. Jeffersonians couldn't have done it. And Jefferson himself would be appalled not just at the size of our government, but also at the results of economic development.

Good for you! Among the many superficial slanders one has to put aside in a fight this broad is this business that whiggery was just the corrupt nanny instinct or something. The attempt to act politically to establish and preserve the common good of economic liberty and other, associated common goods deserves a defense too, and the Whigs were more hero than villain in that substantially successful struggle -- as were all well-intentioned Americans for their various, imperfectly coordinated causes, we might cheerfully add. After all, as Webster said to Hayne, we're all Americans.

The question was how Hamilton behaved when he was in the government and in positions of responsibility.

Actually, the question posed by our pompous friend was this:

I repeat my previous question to you:
Please list for me:
a) the "big bureaucracy" that Alexander Hamilton advocated and established...

I presented an excerpt from John Taylor’s New Views of the Constitution of the United States (1823), quoting Mr. Hamilton’s plan for a national government based upon the British model. Would you suggest that an American national government as proposed by Mr. Hamilton would NOT be a “big bureaucracy,” as compared to the specifically-limited federal government actually adopted?

On the whole he performed admirably, taking steps to put the country's financial house in order and building a sound basis for future development.

I would not suggest otherwise. And as Mr. Taylor observed:

“The frankness of [Mr. Hamilton’s] undisguised proposition was honourable, and illustrates the character of an attempt to obtain a power for the federal government, substantially the same, not by plain and candid language, like Colonel Hamilton's, but by equivocal and abstruse inferences from language as plain, used with the intention of excluding his plan of government entirely...”

I quoted this entire statement in Post #77, with the comments complimentary to Mr. Hamilton highlighted - something else our egotistical friend chose to ignore.

Politics in the early days of the Republic required the balancing of centralizing and decentralizing tendencies. A statesman would recognize this. An ideologue does not. Jefferson was a statesman in office and an ideologue in opposition and retirement.

Perhaps I can change your opinion:

“Whether we remain in one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederations, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1804

Note the date - perhaps you will eventually come to view Mr. Jefferson as an ‘ideologue in office.’ Obviously, many Americans preferred (and continue to prefer ;>) Mr. Jefferson the “ideologue” to the nationalist alternatives...

The model presented by so many here of libertarian Jeffersonians and statist Hamiltonians does ignore the repression exercised by slaveholders. To be sure, such slaveowners could be Federalists or Jeffersonians, Whigs or Democrats...

And many here ignore the elitist tendencies of certain Federalists: allow me to post a few of Chancellor Kent’s comments in that regard, dated 1835:

“There never was such misrule. Our Tory rich men are becoming startled and alarmed at our downhill course. My opinion is that the admission of universal suffrage and a licentious press are incompatible with government and security to property...”

Apparently not all Federalists thought “universal suffrage” and freedom of the press a good idea.

;>)

...libertarians and capitalists fail to recognize their own fathers when they attack men like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln.

Actually, what I recognize is something akin to ‘emperor worship,’ when self-described ‘freedom loving’ Americans ‘gloss over’ the unconstitutional excesses of any President – whether it be Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Clinton. Personally, I would suggest that ‘zero tolerance’ is an appropriate standard...

;>)