No doubt Washington and Hamilton played a huge part in the founding of the country. Perhaps this duo played the most dominant part is setting our country's course. The authors of his laudatory book would certainly agree.
Washington's historical reputation has never wavered. Hardly a negative word has ever been said about our first President. Hamilton's historical reputation has fluctuated. Perhaps because of the current popular play, his reputation is probably at an all-time high. Hamilton is forever tied to his major nemesis, Thomas Jefferson. The latter is probably at a low ebb currently. As Joseph Ellis says, Jefferson eventually disappoints. Hamilton shines the more closely you consider his record.
"Indeed, no other founding collaboration was as important to achieving victory and nationhood as Washington's and Hamilton's." P. xi
More important than Ellis's founding brothers I might say.
Their story buttresses the old-fashioned great man theory of history. P. xiii
With his famous aloofness, did Washington really have any friends? P. xiii
Oedipal speculations regarding Washington and Hamilton are futile. P. xiv
Regardless, there was a genuine bond between the two men without which American history might have turned out differently. P. xiv
The different backgrounds of the two have been well-documented. Their formative years could not have been more different as Hamilton came from the British West Indies and Washington grew up in relative stability and comfort in Virginia. P. 1
Washington yearned for virtuous fame. Virtue is a key word in understanding our formative years in this country. P. 4
Hamilton's less than idyllic childhood in Nevis. P. 19
"In October of 1772 Hamilton boarded a ship for North American with few earthly belongings and never returned to the West Indies." P. 25
As is well-know, Hamilton showed ability early and had benefactors to send him north out of obscurity.
The reader is reminded that a major cause of the Revolutionary War was the so-called French and Indian War that added significantly to the British debt. P. 31
In the growth of revolutionary ideology, for Washington it was about the moral principle of consensual self-government rather than economic self-interest. P. 49
The bonding of Washington and Hamilton. P. 62-63
They believed in a republican government but with a national outlook and a national government if the nation were to last. P. 63
The two of them drifted apart after the war ended but resumed their friendship starting at the Constitutional Convention.
That he might have sought military glory on the battlefield should not be held against him.
Either Hamilton was proponent for monarchy and aristocracy, or else he was simply seeking elements of stability and permanence to buttress a republic. Take your pick. P. 151
Lifetime offices was something the CC was never going to accept. P. 152
June 18, 1787: Hamilton's famous 6 hour speech leading to charges that he was at heart at monarchist.
His speech was ignored. He was trying to solve the problems of the 1780's. It damaged any influence he might have had on the Convention. The author speculates that his speech may made the Virginia Plan more palatable. P. 153
By June 28th the Convention was completely deadlocked. P. 153
BF proposes prayer. P. 154
The Convention resisted, not needing any foreign aide. P. 154
Yet it may have led to the big compromise. P. 154
I try to picture this convention of demigods discussing, arguing, cajoling each other day after day, with the majestic George Washington sitting silent at the head of the room.
Hamilton certainly worked as hard as anybody for ratification while harboring misgivings about the document. P. 162
Philadelphia renewed the relationship between Washington and Hamilton. P. 163
Hamilton must have done wonders at the New York convention ratifying the new Constitution given the odds against him. P. 174
New York narrowly approved the new Constitution 30 to 27. P. 175
Most of the praise for the approval of the Constitution goes to the man who said the least: George Washington just because of his presence and character. P. 176
President Washington assumed office April 30, 1789. P. 181
As an immigrant, Hamilton was never burdened by being attached to a particular state. P. 184
Hamilton's proposals for a diversified national economy was seen as a northern conspiracy to disadvantage the slave states, which led to the first party system. While there is some truth in this belief, national security considerings led Hamilton to assert that the country needed to develop a strong national government and manufacturing. P. 189
Madison opposed the national bank who had endorsed the doctrine of implied powers in Federalist #44, but then reversed himself in January of 1791 during the debate over the bank. P. 190
Jefferson's hatred of banks was so vehement that he proposed that those people who proposed and supported the bank should charged with treason and executed. P. 191
The Federalists's fear of Jefferson taking office in 1801 was based on Jefferson's extremist words. P. 191
Hamilton's manufacturing proposals. P. 191
Jefferson and his minions thought Hamilton's manufacturing proposals w
ere designed to destroy the South. P. 192
Madison's switch to a "strict" interpretation of the Constitution. P 194
The French question in the 1790's was a matter of ideology. P. 194
Jefferson was comfortable with the idea of revolution. A little revolution now and then is a good thing. The American Constitution should be revised if not totally replaced every generation. Jefferson was truly a radical extremist. P. 195
Jefferson's earliest memory was being carried on a pillow by a slave. P. 195
For Hamilton unlike Jefferson there was nothing similar between the French and American revolutions. A search for liberty vs. licentiousness. Indeed, the French Revolution was a precursor for the violence and mass executions of the 20th Century. P. 196
Hamilton was appalled by Jefferson's continued support for the French Revolution even when it turned bloody. Hamilton felt that if virtue had any meaning, the French Revolution would eventually looked at as a travesty. P. 196
Jefferson remained a Francophile even after the revolution turned into a Napoleonic dictatorship. P. 196
Washington dismissed Jefferson's attribution of monarchial motivations to Hamilton. P. 197
Jefferson felt that an aging Washington was manipulated by Hamilton. P. 197
Only Washington could have kept the country given the partisan fighting in the 1790's. P. 197
The so-called Whiskey Rebellion provided further fodder for Jefferson's extremist ravings. P. 200.
The Whiskey Rebellion response was the doings of President Washington with Hamilton serving as the heavy. P. 201
The author obviously believes that the Washington administration's response was the appropriate response in supporting the authority of the new government. P. 201
The Republicans were opposed to the Jay Treaty even before they learned of its contents. P. 202
The Jeffersonians were horrified that a treaty that would harm their electoral hopes at the expense of benefiting the country could be seriously ratified. P. 203
History seems to largely confirmed the benefits of the Jay Treaty. P. 203
During the deliberations over the Jay Treaty the politics of personal destruction became the norm and whatever hopes that Washington for a unified country were lost forever. P. 205
Jefferson accused Jay and Washington of treason. P. 205
Henceforth Washington would have nothing to do with Jefferson. P. 205
Washington first invokes executive privilege. P. 207
A wild time of folly and madness according to Hamilton. P. 209
In his farewell message Washington urged the nation to embrace the common good. P. 212
Washington exhausted himself trying to reconcile the parties. P. 213
The Jeffersonian press was diabolical and unrelenting. P. 214
The double-faced Jefferson. P. 214
Washington finally realized the perfidy of Madison and Jefferson and it cut him to this core. P. 214
Jefferson was anti-British due to his massive debts to his British creditors. P. 215
Adams despised Hamilton for he was not American enough. Jefferson share his contempt for the non-native born Hamilton. Adams was deranged when it came to Hamilton, once suggesting that he might be opium addicted. P. 219
Hamilton supported the alien and sedition acts. P. 221
Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions which defined the states rights definition of the Constitution. They advocated nullification at the point of violence and blood. There was reign of witches in their eyes and minds. P. 221
Jefferson verged on showing loyalty to France over his own country. P. 224
Jefferson had an idealized version of an agrarian past. He was fearful of economic change and sympathetic to slavery. Fortunately he sobered up as President was more Hamiltonian than Jeffersonian. P. 228.
Hamilton presented his political views like a lawyerly brief, marshaling the facts. P. 233
Republicans successfully presented the Federalists as the party of privilege. P. 234
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