www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071513/posts?page=1,50
Representatives of the Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr factions also turned out in force. 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 Americas first treasury secretary, who created the blueprint for Americas 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.
Because, historian John Steele Gordon responded dryly, most intellectuals love Jefferson and hate markets, and its mostly intellectuals who write books. Even Hamiltons 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 nations 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 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. 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 Americas 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, Americas 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 Hamiltons fifth great-grandson. Hamilton had at least one, and probably several, adulterous affairs Martha Washington named her randy tomcat Hamilton. Hamilton, wrote Frederick Scott Oliver in his 1920 biography, despised .
He belonged to an age of silk stockings and handsome shoe buckles. He didnt 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 Hamiltons 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 Hamiltons 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.
Because, historian John Steele Gordon responded dryly, most intellectuals love Jefferson and hate markets, and its mostly intellectuals who write books. Most conservatives love Jefferson because it has become apparent that the America that Hamilton envisioned turned out to be thoroughly inconsistent with the ideals laid out in the United States Constitution. The concepts of freedom and liberty get very blurred once you have an urbanized industrial society in which people live in close proximity to each other and are practically forced to interact with each other on a daily basis.
Post Reply Private Reply To 7 View Replies To: HenryLeeII While I disagree with Hamiltons stronger tilt towards the Federal Government than many of his contemporaries, the essays that he wrote among those in the Federalist Papers are not that markedly different in thrust from those of James Madison. It is a slander of Hamilton, to suggest that he would ever have endorsed the compulsively egalitarian bent in Washington today. That was not the type of strong Federal Government, that he advocated. William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site 9 posted on 02/04/2004 12:34:12 PM PST by Ohioan Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: HenryLeeII During George Washingtons presidency, there arose the issue concerning the constitutionality of creating a national bank. Those opposed pointed out that the Constitution didnt provide any specific express authorization for the Federal government to create a national bank. Those in favor argued that, while there was no specific grant of express authority for a bank in the Constitution, there existed implied authority in the Constitutions necessary and proper clause. Washington sided with Hamiltons expansive view of Federal power and the Federal government was off to the races.
Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: Deliberator I think they do become blurred. If you and I live next door to each other, almost anything I do on my property can have some kind of impact on you particularly with regard to things like water and air quality. Should I be permitted to play my stereo all night if it keeps you awake? Conversely, should you be able to force me never to play my stereo at all? A real dilemma in this regard: If you live next door to me, should I be permitted to bring down the law against you if your refuse to have your children inoculated against lethal infectious diseases?
Post Reply Private Reply To 8 View Replies To: Scenic Sounds Washington sided with Hamiltons expansive view of Federal power and the Federal government was off to the races. In fact, I would make the case that this nation as envisioned in the United States Constitution pretty much came to an end with the events that culminated with the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s. Its pretty weird when you think about it - this novel idea called the United States of America really only lasted about five years.
Should I be permitted to play my stereo all night if it keeps you awake? Introducing water, air, or noise pollution onto my property is a violation of my rights. While you would certainly have more elbow room to produce such pollutions and easily keep them on your own property if you lived in an agrarian society, lack of such elbow room does not blur the essential concepts of freedom and liberty. A real dilemma in this regard: If you live next door to me, should I be permitted to bring down the law against you if your refuse to have your children inoculated against lethal infectious diseases? If inoculations are available and you have been inoculated, why would you care whether my kids have been?
Hamilton had as much if not more to do with the calling of the CC, the debate leading to the writing of the document and the ratification of the constitution as any man. He understood it better than any other American, so much so that John Marshall looked up to him as a legal mind. But he, unlike his enemies, understood that unless the federal government was strengthened and regard for the Union heightened the nation would fall under the yoke of the great empires which surrounded us. Jeffersons view of the future was totally screwe...
|
http://csua.com/feed/