Thomas Jefferson wrote the following about Alexander Hamilton while he was Secratary of State to President George Washington:
"He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach, but so that he at length he could unravel it himself. He gave to the dept in the first instance, in funding it, the most artificial and mysterious form he could devise... until the whole system was involved in impenatrable fog; and while he was giving himself the airs of providing for the payment of the dept, he left himself free to add to it continually, as he did in fact, instead of paying for it." (The Real Thomas Jefferson pg. 167-168)
In this instance Jefferson attributes Hamilton with wanting to grant more control to the federal government and, as Jefferson belived, adding more to the United States' national dept. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were bitter rivals in the cabinet of our county's first president. Jefferson, who was the author of the Decleration of Independance, was a very wise Philosopher who also tended to favor smaller federal government influence while Hamilton, who was at one time an aid to General Washington during the Revolutionary War, was a businessman who believed in a larger federal government. Alexander Hamilton believed that the rich and well born members of America's society should make most of the decisions while Thomas Jefferson had more respect for state's rights and wanted the everyday citizen to be involved in decisions through, for example, voting. Jefferson beleived that the United States should be friendlier with France than with Great Britan as Hamilton believed. Oftentimes Thomas Jefferson would sometimes have to excuse himself from cabinet meetings in the first executive administration because plain and simply Hamilton drove him up the wall. The fued between Jefferson and Hamilton led to the begining of two-party politics in America with the Republican party forming around the ideals of the Secretary of State and the Federalist party forming their views to coincide with the Secretary of the Treasury.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the following about Alexander Hamilton while he was Secratary of State to President George Washington: 
In this instance Jefferson attributes Hamilton with wanting to grant more control to the federal government and, as Jefferson belived, adding more to the United States' national dept. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were bitter rivals in the cabinet of our county's first president. Jefferson, who was the author of the Decleration of Independance, was a very wise Philosopher who also tended to favor smaller federal government influence while Hamilton, who was at one time an aid to General Washington during the Revolutionary War, was a businessman who believed in a larger federal government. Alexander Hamilton believed that the rich and well born members of America's society should make most of the decisions while Thomas Jefferson had more respect for state's rights and wanted the everyday citizen to be involved in decisions through, for example, voting. Jefferson beleived that the United States should be friendlier with France than with Great Britan as Hamilton believed. Oftentimes Thomas Jefferson would sometimes have to excuse himself from cabinet meetings in the first executive administration because plain and simply Hamilton drove him up the wall. The fued between Jefferson and Hamilton led to the begining of two-party politics in America with the Republican party forming around the ideals of the Secretary of State and the Federalist party forming their views to coincide with the Secretary of the Treasury.
2 comments:
Very interesting! I didn't know that! Wow.
The politics of early America is amazingly full of big federal government and states rights fights. It's been going on practically from the time the signers finished the documents.
As long as the country remains strongly Christian and righteous it has been able to stay on the side of the angels. As people leave God even the Constitution won't be able to keep us strong. It's weakened to the point that we're in trouble. Greed and immorality replace God.
It's age old, but it's just as tragic now as it ever was.
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