Posted on 01/10/2007 10:45:15 AM PST by presidio9
Before the Long-Term Capital Management collapse nearly paralyzed the world's capital markets, and before the stock market crashes of 1987 and 1929, there was America's first widespread financial crisis: the Panic of 1792.
Today it's a little-known footnote to American financial history. But if it weren't for the quick thinking of a New Yorker named Alexander Hamilton, and his actions as America's first central banker, the events surrounding Wall Street's first bona fide crash could have meant doom for the struggling, cash-strapped republic.
Descendants of Hamilton, as well as an ambassador, historians, and grateful Wall Street executives, will gather around his grave in the Trinity Churchyard at Broadway and Wall Street tomorrow at 3 p.m. to begin a series of events to commemorate the 250th birthday of the most financially savvy of the Founding Fathers.
"His was a rare financial mind," the Henry Kaufman professor of financial institutions and markets at New York University's Stern School of Business, Richard Sylla, said. "In the early 1790s, five securities were listed in the newspapers as the main items traded: three U.S. Treasury bonds, the stock of the Bank of New York, and the stock of the Bank of the United States. All five were creations of Hamilton."
Although Americans say they think like Jeffersonians, they live like Hamiltonians, pundits say. It was this immigrant, from the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and Nevis, who was prescient enough to establish a strong monetary system, which funded American growth and expansion throughout the 19th century and beyond.
"We like Jefferson for saying ‘all men are created equal,'" Mr. Sylla said. "But he owned 200 slaves and did a lot to perpetuate slavery as a strong proponent of states' rights over federal authority. Hamilton detested slavery
Hamilton
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Descendants of Alexander Hamilton, as well as an ambassador, historians, and grateful Wall Street executives, will gather around his grave in the Trinity Churchyard tomorrow, to begin a series of events to commemorate the 250th birthday.
Alexander Hamilton is the father of American Conservativism. I plan on visiting his grave tomorrow.
NYC ping.
Mr. Hamilton seldom gets the credit he rightly deserves for his service to the nation - in war and in peace.
I wonder, sometimes, what the country would have looked like had he lived longer.
Safe to assume no invites were sent to any members of the Burr family.
LOL, you stole my thunder.
I believe he and Franklin are the only non presidents on the dollar bills.
"The only President of the United States who was never President of the United States"
Is Aaron Burr invited?......Can't we all just move on?......
I wonder, sometimes, what the country would have looked like had he lived longer.
I wonder what the country would have looked like if he had been born here.
Samuel P. Chase..........(but that bill isn't in circulation).....
No founding father was more brilliant or contributed more to America as we know it today. His financial genius alone was enough to revere him but as a sideshow he authored the bulk of the federalist papers that tell us more than any other document about the intent of the founders.
What a great man. I would trade all the mediocrities we are cursed with today in politics for this one guy.
I wonder if anyone thought of inviting Senator Burr (R-NC) who is a descendent of Aaron Burr to the festivites? If the survivors of the Hatfield-McCoy feud in West Virginia could smoke the peace pipe, why couldn't the Hamiltons and the Burrs?
Alexander Hamilton is the father of American Conservativism.
Although I have the utmost respect for Hamilton, the most level-headed of all the Founders (and the secret behind a lot of Washington's success), and is it true that his sound financial mind made our Republic possible, I don't know that I'd go too far.
Hamilton was, after all, responsible for the tax that launched the Whiskey Rebellion. He was also a believer in a strong central Federal government, with the states subordinate.
Applying modern political labels to Founding Fathers is dicey at best. Better, I think, to simply celebrate his accomplishments.
Is that the Chase of banking fame? I have always lumped them with the Rockefellers...more lucky than learned...
;p
LOL!
Fancy finance ping...
Apparently, I'm related to Alexander Hamilton (or the man on the 10-dollar bill, as I call him), so I guess I should make a little comment here. While I think his influence was mostly positive, I think he died in a very silly way. It's good for us, though, to remember our forefathers, because, in so many ways, they were better and more moral than the politicians we get these days.
Hamilton wrote in a letter the night before that he personally opposed dueling and intended to throw his shot. Burr said the following afternoon, that mist got in his eyes, or he would have hit Hamilton in the heart. It should be noted that at this point in our nation's history, duels were largely ceremonial, and were in the process of being outlawed in both NY and NJ. Hamilton himself had previously been involved in 10 shotless duels.
You have that right about Hamilton. A genius and our country owes a great amount of gratitude for his service in the Revolutionary War and his economic ideas, however I have always suspected that he would have made himself king if given the chance. Overtly ambitious, but maybe that what happens when you come from nowhere like him and he did argue for a strong federal goverment. Still as you said, "Applying modern political labels to Founding Fathers is dicey at best. Better, I think, to simply celebrate his accomplishments."
But that's exactly what you are doing. The country desperately needed Fedralism at that time. Washington's political party died with Hamilton.
BTW, I consider Jefferson to be the father of American Liberalism.
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