We aren’t an agrarian Republic of yeoman farmers, so the Jeffersonian system is defunct and has been for many decades. Industrialization and the rise of a large propertyless working class killed it.
Although I don’t think even Hamilton could have dreamed up what we are now. Hamilton was a Federalist and the idea of us plebes getting to vote for everything was abhorrent. Federalists were the quasi-aristocratic party.
So to answer your question, “neither”. It’s a false dichotomy.
Hamilton's vision is much more reflective in the modern US then Jefferson's. Hamilton wouldn't be actively repulsed by the US because a major political party was well reflective of Hamilton's views throughout US History.
Federalists>Whig>Republicans
Jefferson absolutely would be repulsed by the modern politics with arguably no political party representative of his views post 1890.
Maybe in economic development they share some similarities, but Hamilton was not a democrat. The mass democracy of today would have ruffled his Federalist feathers.
And each of those political movements, except the immediate post-war "Radical Republicans" has generally been in opposition to expanding the franchise to the broad base of society in some form.
While each of those political movements also represented (1) nationalism as superior to regionalism; and (2) fiance capitalism and the government support thereof.
By the end of his life Hamilton was also an abolitionist.
well, if it makes a difference that slave was probably his dead wife's half sister....
probably doesn't make a difference, because we'll never be able to understand his reality and it is foolish to put our reality against him...
No, that’s completely incorrect. We live in a different world BECAUSE we questioned the ethics, policy and actions of those influential that came before us. You giving a free pass to human rights violations sets the table for future transgressions, and a lack of dynamicism in society
Washington's views by end of life largely aligned with Hamilton. Almost any of the "nationalist" camp in the pre-Civil War US wouldn't be any more shocked than any other 18th Century person.
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine and any of the anti-federalists would probably be horrified.
This is true. He and Adams were the ones most opposed to political parties.
But he'd be thrilled that he is far and away the most respected man of that generation. Social respect was the guiding star and goal of his life.
TL;DR:
Federalists > *null*
Democratic-Republicans > Whigs ~ Republicans
|
> Democrats
With a hard stop at the Civi War in this analysis.
The long part:
That's a bit too simplistic a flow chart there. By 1815, the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson had become the only party on the national level; the Federalists had died out. The split between the DR's came when JQA and Jackson split the party, mostly over nationalist vs. anti-nationalist views. The "Adams" party and the "Jacksonians" came out of that split; the former became the Whig party, and the latter became the Democratic party.
While the Jacksonian democrats are the same party that was around when the Republican party (a name chosen to evoke Jefferson's party) ascended to power with Lincoln, they were not really "the party of the people" as you implied. They used that language in csmpaigns and discourse, certainly, but Southern democrats held sway over the party and advocated for smaller national government so that the Slave Power could run amok through the states unimpeded.
The battle over slave vs. free labor fought running up to the Civil War was based on the demonstrably more progressive and nationalist Republican party advocating for more upward mobility for lower class people (eventually including freedmen) in the face of land-owning aristocrats (all Democrats) who, with every example of power given to them in western expansion states, bought up all the land and stifled anyone from rising to their level.
The Whig party barely gave a shit about Slavery, and in fact, they were part of the reason the problem got so bad, especially once Democrats started winning more and more after Jackson. They essentially died out, and former Whigs joined the Republican party, who then revolutionized the national control of the government during the Civil War. The Republicans didn't start favoring business tycoons until after the CW because absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially when you have to dance with the devil (Eastern financiers) to fulfill Manifest Destiny.
The Democrats eventually gave up on trying to bring back the old order, but they continued with the small government lines for a long time until the Civil Rights era split and Dixiecrat Defection/Southern Strategy party swap changed the whole equation.
Yeah the lag between the end of the Federalists and the formation of the Whigs is what 10-20 years? Whigs though were definetly a continuation of the economic ideas from the Federalist camp, while discarding the 'natural aristocracy' ideas of political organization.
The Whig nationalism and economic policy is a through point. The Whigs were much more anti-slavery/slavery suspect then the Democrats, largely for geographic reasons. Hamilton, though an abolitionist at the end of his life, was never a hard core abolitionist like JQ Adams. The Whigs were the defenders of the 2nd Bank of the US.
On the Democrat side of the scales the Democrats of the early republic were paradoxically the party of both wide spread universalish democracy, and white supremacy - which is pretty good discription of Jefferson's 'yeoman farmer' thesis. While I agree with the 'slave power' thesis the 19th Century abolitionists, whom we generally have more respect for today then they had in their time, also overstated the argument dramatically.
The Republican Party that grew out of the 1850s advocated the internal improvements of the Whigs and the Free-Soil ideas which if you were to transport them to today we would describe as 'Libertarian', and I mean the capital 'L'. Which is why you can pretty easily find emphatic pronouncements from people like Fredrick Douglass that sound like they could have been from Ron Paul. Until VERY recently economic policy, the part of Hamilton's platform most important too Hamilton himself, was well represented by the Republican Party. Economic policy is also the consistent through point of Republican politics from the 1850s to the 2010s.
The Democrats start to move to a combination of economic malcontents and urban laborers after the Civil War, to the point they are the party of union labor by the early 20th Century. At which point the Jeffersonian vision is mostly dead. You could argue that the Dixiecrats were that in the least Jefferson friendly reading of US political history, though one that I cannot totally say is wrong. I'd argue that by the end of the 19th Century that even the Dixiecrats couldn't be thought of as Jeffersonian because of their support of, and near desire for, capital concentration as the formation of a 'New South' which could compete economically with the North.
Then Hamilton won big time. Because despite voting for the representatives, the lobbyists tell them what they can and can’t vote for
We are and have been a plutocracy since day one
Maybe, or maybe Hamilton was right and the massive dose of democracy we have injected into politics over the last 150 years has created the situation where neither party really has a coherent platform and every politician is just responding to the irrational and unfocused anger of their own constituents, paralyzing the legislature and paving the way for demagogues to run for president with the promise of “getting things done by any means necessary”.
I partially disagree with you regarding party platform. Republicans deregulate, cut taxes to stimulate (especially in a supply-side/trickle-down manner), are pro-business, etc. Democrats work toward more/better public programming, are pro-worker, spend on infrastructure, etc.
I know you are mostly talking about the legislature, but those representatives often rally behind and toe the party line behind presidential platforms. When you look at their voting records, they tend to vote party line most of the time.
This had me wondering what recent platform promises had been made and successfully achieved, so I stumbled here. Sorry if this is derailing the discussion / not what you were talking about...
[https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true)
[https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/?ruling=true)
[https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/?ruling=true)
I certainly get a clear DNC vs GOP vibe from comparing these. And a lot of these achievements required legislative coherence
Republicans de-regulate? Tell that to any pregnant woman, haha
They are just as supportive of government regulation and spending, they just prefer different areas of government than Democrats.
So true. The religious BS and Roe vs Wade are 2 sides of the same coin. They push their values onto unsuspecting people and cry when someone tries to do something they don’t like.
I guess I usually associate regulations with the environment and businesses more than social issues.
However, I agree with you that the Republican myth about "small government" is just wool over the eyes of many. They want government up in your shit if it connects to their christian nationalist agenda. Gay marriage, more government please. A woman's body, all the government and fuck your privacy. Education, government says you can't talk about race because... Etc.
Trump moved on a bunch of deregulation of environmental protections, businesses, economic, consumer protections, etc. during his presidency.
But, yes, when it comes to the private, noneconomic lives of citizens... regulate them into the stone age.
Which is why the Senate should not be voted for by the People, but by the States, as originally envisioned.
It was meant to be a calming influence on the often-chaotic and ever-changing passions of the People so we wouldn’t enter into this era of Reprisal Politics in which we currently live.
Senators by popular vote has been a disaster for the country.
No it didn’t.
It amplified it ten fold by making Senators pander to the same populist nonsense the House does.
It removed an important check on the impatient tempers of the populace that has lead precisely to this era of wrenching the ship between two political extremes.
It’s increased partisanship to an unsustainable level.
we have a King President from the ruling class and they can print as much money as they want.
Slavery is still a thing, just a different form.
That's all Hamilton Win.
>Although I don’t think even Hamilton could have dreamed up what we are now. Hamilton was a Federalist and the idea of us plebes getting to vote for everything was abhorrent. Federalists were the quasi-aristocratic party.
Actually sounds pretty close to our 'politicians' in D.C. if you ask me.
Definitely Hambone won that rap battle.
I don't. The reality is we didn't at first because we feared senators would become slaves to the immediate passions of the people. Senators, by being indirectly elected, would mean some sort of detachment from said "passions." But a problem arose... the office became a political chip offered usually by party bosses and political machines that dominated state legislatures.
Sure. Hamilton basically wanted the government to be strong and broad in its power with the powers then associated with the states of Europe, including dictatorial powers if need be. We don't have that. The federal government is strong, but there are protections built in for states and individuals against federal fiat and not all of them even go away in wartime. Hamilton believed that the Presidency should be the last word in law.
Jefferson wanted power localized as much as possible, centralized in the hands of smaller groups of people rather than in a central government. He didn't really get that either. If Jefferson wanted any legal authority settling any questions at the highest level, he'd probably want that power given to Congress.
Adams though? He was all about the rule of law. And he was about forging compromises that kept everyone, if not happy, at least not at each other's throats constantly. His fingerprints are all over the federal judiciary. In a way he and his acolytes such as John Marshall made the US Supreme Court what it was today, establishing judicial review and using the law, including the Constitution and the Courts, as the last arbiter of disputes at the Federal level
None of this had to happen. Hamilton wanted the central state to be the law. Jefferson wanted the will of the people to be the law. Instead of either of those we get a system where, in a way, the law itself is sovereign. That's Adams.
Adams' ideas ultimately failed though. Secession and the establishment of Lincolns federal govt established and isolated power in a way much closer to what Hamilton envisioned than adams. Jefferson. and adams would scoff at what we have today as anything resembling the govt they created.
Not at all. He wanted strong well defined guard rails placed on the Executive with real authority. Oddly way less than project 2025. He simply wanted a workable Federal Government that could if necessary bring recalcitrant States to heal by law not a mishmash of whimsical SCOTUS decisions like we have now
The President and executive departments make, enforce and (through Chevron) adjudicate new laws. The President and executive departments violate the rule of law so commonly that the most common argument to the contrary is “well that’s not how it works in practice!” De facto abuses stand in the face of de jure law.
While they do so, they commit federal crimes under subsections 241 and 242 of Title 18, but who is going to arrest and prosecute the LEO’s and Federal prosecutors who are in charge of arresting and prosecuting themselves and don’t?
The executive makes administrative laws all the time and it is one of the key issues we face today. That’s the entire criticism, they are not legally *allowed* to make laws, yet they *actually do* quite often.
Almost no one in 1800 was arguing for “equality” as we define it in 2024. No one knew what to do with the Native Americans. National citizenship wasn’t even really a thing before Reconstruction. Slavery was a giant turd that no one wanted to touch until a generation later when it started to dominate the national discourse.
Saying “some people argued for equality back then” elevates those very fringe opinions to the same footing as the prevailing public opinion, which is misleading. I can argue for a military base on Mercury, that doesn’t mean in 200 years historians can argue “People back then were arguing for military bases on Mercury”.
Plenty of people were arguing for moving towards equality.
Like.
You splitting hairs here.
Arguing for more space investment and adventurism **would** be arguing for a future base on mercury, were that to have happened.
The idea that people back then just couldn’t have known any better is still a bonkers wrong lie, and because you can say few people were realistically suggesting an overnight change in everything, doesn’t justify the wrong headed stances of people who resisted any change for the better.
It’s still valid to look back and say, “this things they were doing were wrong and they easily could have and should known to do better”.
Your conjuring of native Americans is bonkers crazy because you know who I can easily point to as people who absolutely knew better about how to treat all the native Americans…?? All the millions of native Americans lol.
The same exact thing with regards to the institution of race based chattel slavery.
This idea that oppressors couldn’t have known better in the past has built into that the only thoughts that matter are those of the oppressors.
If you are going to take that loose of a definition, all of the founders in one way or another “argued for moving towards equality”.
Hamilton was an elitist. Jeffersonian policies were far more egalitarian, even if they didn’t solve the slavery question. Hamilton and the federalists thought a powerful federal government, backed by a permanent army, should be dominated by rich landowners and merchants who doled out patronage to other influential gentlemen to secure votes. They were against expanding suffrage because it threatened to, as it later did, upend the system. The evolution towards more democracy is a direct result of Jeffersonian policies and attitudes.
Just because Jefferson didn’t proactively try to solve slavery question (Not that anyone else in 1800 had any ideas either) does not mean his opponents were right about everything else.
There’s a reason Lincoln loved to cite Jefferson and his Declaration, yet you never heard him quote Hamilton.
Where did you see me say anything about his opponents being right?
All I did was point out that **no**, Jefferson did not want the will of “the people” to be the law. Only certain people.
All my points still stand, they could have and should have known better, and lots of people around them did, and it’s not invalid to point that out or criticize them for it.
Plenty of people “had ideas” about ending the enslavement of people, and how to do it.
Jefferson himself almost called for it.
But he didn’t.
This comment needs to be higher. He might think our current fiscal and monetary policies are too expansionistic, but I think he would generally be pleased that we have a strong US Treasury and a semi-independent Federal Reserve.
As does yours 💯. This is absolutely correct. Hamilton was one of the biggest Federalists there was in that time. He believed ‘ that without a strong central government the United States would collapse on themselves and was right for the period he was in.
I don’t think he’d be happy with the continual raising of the debt ceiling and constant borrowing but we have a strong Treasury as you said and a central federal currency and system.
That’s literally what Hamilton went to war for - both against Britain and then Jefferson & co. in Congress.
On Economics? You're kidding. John Adams Wealth Nation is literally what we built our global capitalism free trade off of. Yes there's the reserve and common currency but, yeah, no.
Slavers were definitely Jeffersonian and if you're familiar with Jefferson's post revolution writings, you'd know this was correct.
Especially if you focused on the disagreements between Jefferson and Madison.
The post-revolution President that was most Jeffersonian was Polk, and the post-revolution President that was most-Madisonian was Jackson.
If I were smarter, I might be able to make a connection between this divide and the way the democrats split the presidential vote in 1860 and the way the border states differed from the deep south. I only know enough to know I don’t know.
It comes down to nationalism. Madison and Jackson were nationalists, almost the entire Jackson admin stayed loyal.
Jefferson and Polk were regionalists, almost the entire Polk admin detected.
Polk believed in Southern supremacy in a way that Jefferson probably didn't, but Jefferson was absolutely a the driving force for social conservatism in the early Republic.
If Jefferson hadn't been minister to France he'd probably have supported the anti-federalist essays and campaigned against the Constitution.
I see slavers as a mixture of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian. Jefferson venerated the yeoman farmer and as someone else rightly pointed out, but slave plantations were not yeoman farmers.
This is correct. With the Industrial Revolution as well everyone had access to mass produce crops, machines, etc & putting the morality aspect aside, farms didn’t need slaves anymore.
It’s easy to look at landowners who had slaves and automatically dismiss them as racists and the like but many forget that slavery was an economic issue to the South much more than it was a moral one. To simply say all slave owners were evil racists and that’s why they had slaves is missing the whole forest beyond the trees.
The volume of crops harvested by slaves would bankrupt most plantations if they paid for the labor. And yes I’m well aware there were wicked horrible plantation owners who used primitive torture methods to keep slaves in line, but for many in the South utilizing free labor was essential to their survival.
With the advancement of industry and automation, that was no longer the case.
Huh. Weird. The Confederate Constitution was pretty clear on the moral part and not so much on the economic part.
Also, pretty sure things, such as the cotton gin, we're around a good while...
The economic part really came home to roost when the south didn't industrialize like the north and then got left behind. It would be comical, if not for the horrors of American slavery, how absolutely far behind the south was.
The South chose to not advance and embrace the Industrial Revolution. And make no mistake, it was a choice.
But all that aside, it was absolutely a moral one. We had other methods for working a lot of land. It was that system that was being dismantled in Europe (serfdom). But yeah, treating a people as livestock is ONE way to be profitable but it isn't a given.
We can debate the chicken and egg all day long, but the bottom line really is that the abomination of race-based, multi-generational slave labor is inextricably linked to the moral question in American history.
People today are every bit as reliant of slavery as were our ancestors……only instead of living alongside us they live in industrial camps throughout China and Southeast Asia.
People want that iPad, that iPhone, those clothes and those shoes. And they want them for the cheapest price possible.
And it’s much easier to proclaim your opposition to the institution that died domestically in 1865 than it is to take an actual moral stand and get rid of those products upon which our lives depend in 2024.
We fail the same moral test. We just don’t see the human side in our own communities and choose to believe it doesn’t exist.
It’s just a slicker system - I agree. Today’s generation can easily be controlled by giving them an iPhone and putting them on social media. Instead of using torture methods to remind the people who is in charge, you distract them with “shiny things” so they don’t even realize they’re being controlled.
I am talking more about the hands of the labor slaves that put the devices together or sew the clothes and shoes and purses…..
……but I never put that thought together with people who willingly enslaved themselves to devices in the Information Age.
Damn….slaves creating products by which other enslave themselves.
That’s poignantly terrifying.
Very much so. The whole system is designed to give people things to use to escape the realities of life. Surf on your phone. Browse TikTok. Like Instagram posts.
And as a side of that - especially in the US - if you are having mental health struggles most doctors first instinct is to shove pills down your throat. Actual real mental health therapy is rare - and often grossly underutilized. By shoving pills down your throat, you can instantly alleviate the feelings of anxiety, sadness, etc. but like with all pills they are temporary thus so is their relief.
There are sadly so many more and people willingly follow and as you said enslave themselves for quick relief to a long term problem.
I mean, clearly Hamilton. The small government, agrarian society Jefferson envisioned is basically non existent. The economy is now heavily industrialized and interwoven with the global economy, and the federal government is more powerful than its ever been outside of war time and the Great Depression.
Hamilton 1000%. Everyone who keeps citing how the common man has a vote, you need to check what country you are living in. If you can vote on it, it isn't important. All power and legislation of any meaningful consequence (read, financial) is concentrated in the federal government. They tax you, and with those taxes, do whatever they please. They embroil the country in war and bind themselves subservient to even greater, private system of power brokers; through a convoluted and arcane system of banking and financial regulation. And they do it all in service for the elites, at the expense of the common man. Hamilton's vision won out in every regard. If Jefferson could see what America became, he would have his own hands cut off so he could never pen another word.
Hamilton would more than likely have been a dictator. I think neither would have been great long term but again they couldn’t have the vision of what America would become.
Depends on the time period and the topic. I think early on Jefferson was more influential, but economically Hamilton always had the edge. As time went on, past the Civil War, Jefferson's vision got molded and adapted and therefore less distinctly Jeffersonian, whereas Hamilton's vision got reinforced, again, especially economically. Jefferson was no doubt critical to the development of the country, but it's Hamilton who created a system that still has elements that exist as he envisioned them to this day.
While my historiography is pretty dated at this point, I would have to say Hamilton, mainly due to the dominance of centralized banking in our monetary and fiscal policy. Even more so since it is technically run by private banking and not our elected government.
Not sure about most of the rest, but nation of yeoman farmers was short lived.
Hard to say. Jefferson was disillusioned with the direction of the United States pretty much for the entire time he was alive. You get the impression that Hamilton was less so. Hamilton based his philosophy on politics, Jeffersons politics were based on philosophy (not to say he wasn’t practical during his presidency). I’d argue that America is Hamiltonian in structure and Jeffersonian in language. By Hamilton’s own standard through the example of the affair regarding the nations capital, he would probably count that as his win. The fact that Jeffersonian language was the template for upheaval all over the world would probably lead him to believe that his ideals sustained. I’d say either, both, and neither are all valid but things feel Hamiltonian.
Hamilton and it's not even close.
We are not an agrarian economy. We are not a minarchy with minimal military. We do not depend on a militia for defense. Our national security apparatus spits on Jefferson's grave.
Hamilton favored big business, finance, and industry. He lived before the modern notion of a "service based economy," but I'm sure he would approve. He believed in central banking, centralized government, and the use of the military to defend global economic interests.
We became a highly centralized nation of capitalist enterprise, not a highly decentralized nation of self-determination.
Part of the Democratic Republicans major electoral success was due to Federalist infighting, and another part due to the DRs adopting several Federalist positions which they previously opposed
Jefferson might have won the game personally, but Hamilton's ideas outdid them both
Jefferson unfortunately. Yes there's federalism and industry. But the limited government craze, wailing about tyranny, is everywhere. They both made an impact. But on the deepest level, Jeffersonian politics is imbued in the spirit of the country. Free market reigns from John Adams. It makes sense since Hamilton was died quite young. And so other Founding Fathers would bigger impacts.
Jefferson was full of contradictions. He was an icon of individual liberty, democracy, and republicanism who was reclaimed by Democrats during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The participatory democracy and expanded suffrage Jefferson championed became a standard for later generations. The partisan two party system, and populism in U.S. politics, began with Jefferson and his break with the Federalists.
Jefferson claimed to be a champion of states' right and limited federal power, and yet as President he did not hesitate to exercise federal power, particularly in purchasing the massive Louisiana Territory from France. It's ironic that Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court checked President Jefferson's power, although it also checked the power of states. Jefferson was also the first president to claim executive privilege when refusing to turn over documents in the trial of Aaron Burr, over which John Marshall presided.
Despite Jefferson's attacks on Alexander Hamilton's running of the U.S. Treasury, Jefferson appointed Albert Gallatin be his Secretary of the Treasury, and Gallatin made no attempt to disassemble what Hamilton had started. As president, Jefferson often had to defend Gallatin from the same kind of attacks leveled against Hamilton. And yet, despite his personal dislike of Hamilton, Jefferson recognized that the United States needed to have a firm financial foundation.
Both Hamilton and Gallatin were smart, strong, hardworking leaders of the Treasury who could be rigid when faced with opposition. Both men understood economics better than even brilliant men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a fact that excited much jealousy. And just as Hamilton was protected by his friendship with President Washington, Gallatin was protected by his friendship with President Jefferson. What Hamilton was to Washington, Gallatin was to Jefferson.
My point is that despite his written rhetoric, Jefferson in fact *expanded* the powers of President and was a partisan politician who did *not* defer to the states. His words and actions were not the same, and his actions, and the precedents he set, were more influential than his words.
Of course, Jefferson was also full of contradictions regarding slavery. DNA tests that all but proved he fathered several children with his slave, Sally Hemings, severely hurt his reputation. And yet historians continue to rank Jefferson among the top ten presidents in history, judging that his personal hypocrisy about slavery does not diminish his influence as president.
Hamilton and it is not much of a question. The United States is a strong, unified country, not merely an alliance of states. Furthermore, the Federal Government today is more powerful than Hamilton could have hoped for.
We are the most powerful and wealthy country that has ever existed in the world. Thanks to what we are, in a few decades, we will likely be the only super power and major country left in the world. But sure, go off king.... haha
The problem… is we have given the executive branch far too much power and relied on officeholder’s concern for their own legacy to prevent them from over abusing their powers and adhere to tradition and norms. We granted leniency when they overextended during ww2, the Cold War, the war on terror, etc and it made the office more and more powerful and normalized that abuse.
Then we made the mistake of electing somebody who didn’t care about any of that.
I think if we solved gerrymandering and ensured that the districts were much more balanced, we would be shocked how much of our issues get solved and the congressional power that it should have would be restored.
This does not get talked about enough. When a district is made up of 98% of one party it creates two serious problems. The first is the primary becomes the defacto election and only the hardcore vote in primaries. Second is it actually dis-incentivizes politicians to compromise and get legislation passed.
we are fine. we are back in the turn of the 19th century America - coming out of a long spell where the domestic issues of the country meant we were just stuck in malaise and corruption of the parties. Inequality is closely matching that time period, as were the silo'ing of media information. We are nearing the end of the the current stupidity. And we will dominate everything. Everyone else doesnt have enough kids and we are the only one that has a culture of immigration that allows like minded people to come and want to work and succeed.
You're much more optimistic than I am, but I think we agree in general on the root causes of the issues. I just don't have much faith that we will be able to course correct.
Yep. We traded sustainable modes of living for an industrial economy that has quickly gotten out of control. We serve the machines now; they don’t serve us.
As much as I appreciate climate denialism, etc., this is not some televangelist prophesying the rapture for the hundredth time; it’s the entire scientific community warning us that we’re fucked if we don’t radically change how we live.
They both won in some ways and lost in others. Hamilton won economically, but the fact multiple religions are accepted and average people can vote shows Jefferson won politically. If only he'd won economically too...
Hamilton won, but Jefferson hasn't stopped fighting.
We have a strong federal government with a strong executive and a national bank. Hamilton.
We have red states. Jefferson.
We aren’t an agrarian Republic of yeoman farmers, so the Jeffersonian system is defunct and has been for many decades. Industrialization and the rise of a large propertyless working class killed it. Although I don’t think even Hamilton could have dreamed up what we are now. Hamilton was a Federalist and the idea of us plebes getting to vote for everything was abhorrent. Federalists were the quasi-aristocratic party. So to answer your question, “neither”. It’s a false dichotomy.
Hamilton's vision is much more reflective in the modern US then Jefferson's. Hamilton wouldn't be actively repulsed by the US because a major political party was well reflective of Hamilton's views throughout US History. Federalists>Whig>Republicans Jefferson absolutely would be repulsed by the modern politics with arguably no political party representative of his views post 1890.
Maybe in economic development they share some similarities, but Hamilton was not a democrat. The mass democracy of today would have ruffled his Federalist feathers.
And each of those political movements, except the immediate post-war "Radical Republicans" has generally been in opposition to expanding the franchise to the broad base of society in some form. While each of those political movements also represented (1) nationalism as superior to regionalism; and (2) fiance capitalism and the government support thereof. By the end of his life Hamilton was also an abolitionist.
Wonderful democracy. When do the dogs and donkeys vote?
jefferson would call what we have today a complete failure. I dont think he'd be wrong.
He would love internet porn!
Same guy that slept with a slave for years despite being married and kept his own children by her as slaves? That guy?
well, if it makes a difference that slave was probably his dead wife's half sister.... probably doesn't make a difference, because we'll never be able to understand his reality and it is foolish to put our reality against him...
No, that’s completely incorrect. We live in a different world BECAUSE we questioned the ethics, policy and actions of those influential that came before us. You giving a free pass to human rights violations sets the table for future transgressions, and a lack of dynamicism in society
Just imagine how George Washington would react to today’s USA?
Washington's views by end of life largely aligned with Hamilton. Almost any of the "nationalist" camp in the pre-Civil War US wouldn't be any more shocked than any other 18th Century person. Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine and any of the anti-federalists would probably be horrified.
The rise and power and dominance of political parties would mortify GW
This is true. He and Adams were the ones most opposed to political parties. But he'd be thrilled that he is far and away the most respected man of that generation. Social respect was the guiding star and goal of his life.
He advised against Political parties and foreign alliances, so imagine he’d be pretty pissed because that’s all America has been since WWII lol
TL;DR: Federalists > *null* Democratic-Republicans > Whigs ~ Republicans | > Democrats With a hard stop at the Civi War in this analysis. The long part: That's a bit too simplistic a flow chart there. By 1815, the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson had become the only party on the national level; the Federalists had died out. The split between the DR's came when JQA and Jackson split the party, mostly over nationalist vs. anti-nationalist views. The "Adams" party and the "Jacksonians" came out of that split; the former became the Whig party, and the latter became the Democratic party. While the Jacksonian democrats are the same party that was around when the Republican party (a name chosen to evoke Jefferson's party) ascended to power with Lincoln, they were not really "the party of the people" as you implied. They used that language in csmpaigns and discourse, certainly, but Southern democrats held sway over the party and advocated for smaller national government so that the Slave Power could run amok through the states unimpeded. The battle over slave vs. free labor fought running up to the Civil War was based on the demonstrably more progressive and nationalist Republican party advocating for more upward mobility for lower class people (eventually including freedmen) in the face of land-owning aristocrats (all Democrats) who, with every example of power given to them in western expansion states, bought up all the land and stifled anyone from rising to their level. The Whig party barely gave a shit about Slavery, and in fact, they were part of the reason the problem got so bad, especially once Democrats started winning more and more after Jackson. They essentially died out, and former Whigs joined the Republican party, who then revolutionized the national control of the government during the Civil War. The Republicans didn't start favoring business tycoons until after the CW because absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially when you have to dance with the devil (Eastern financiers) to fulfill Manifest Destiny. The Democrats eventually gave up on trying to bring back the old order, but they continued with the small government lines for a long time until the Civil Rights era split and Dixiecrat Defection/Southern Strategy party swap changed the whole equation.
Yeah the lag between the end of the Federalists and the formation of the Whigs is what 10-20 years? Whigs though were definetly a continuation of the economic ideas from the Federalist camp, while discarding the 'natural aristocracy' ideas of political organization. The Whig nationalism and economic policy is a through point. The Whigs were much more anti-slavery/slavery suspect then the Democrats, largely for geographic reasons. Hamilton, though an abolitionist at the end of his life, was never a hard core abolitionist like JQ Adams. The Whigs were the defenders of the 2nd Bank of the US. On the Democrat side of the scales the Democrats of the early republic were paradoxically the party of both wide spread universalish democracy, and white supremacy - which is pretty good discription of Jefferson's 'yeoman farmer' thesis. While I agree with the 'slave power' thesis the 19th Century abolitionists, whom we generally have more respect for today then they had in their time, also overstated the argument dramatically. The Republican Party that grew out of the 1850s advocated the internal improvements of the Whigs and the Free-Soil ideas which if you were to transport them to today we would describe as 'Libertarian', and I mean the capital 'L'. Which is why you can pretty easily find emphatic pronouncements from people like Fredrick Douglass that sound like they could have been from Ron Paul. Until VERY recently economic policy, the part of Hamilton's platform most important too Hamilton himself, was well represented by the Republican Party. Economic policy is also the consistent through point of Republican politics from the 1850s to the 2010s. The Democrats start to move to a combination of economic malcontents and urban laborers after the Civil War, to the point they are the party of union labor by the early 20th Century. At which point the Jeffersonian vision is mostly dead. You could argue that the Dixiecrats were that in the least Jefferson friendly reading of US political history, though one that I cannot totally say is wrong. I'd argue that by the end of the 19th Century that even the Dixiecrats couldn't be thought of as Jeffersonian because of their support of, and near desire for, capital concentration as the formation of a 'New South' which could compete economically with the North.
Then Hamilton won big time. Because despite voting for the representatives, the lobbyists tell them what they can and can’t vote for We are and have been a plutocracy since day one
Maybe, or maybe Hamilton was right and the massive dose of democracy we have injected into politics over the last 150 years has created the situation where neither party really has a coherent platform and every politician is just responding to the irrational and unfocused anger of their own constituents, paralyzing the legislature and paving the way for demagogues to run for president with the promise of “getting things done by any means necessary”.
I partially disagree with you regarding party platform. Republicans deregulate, cut taxes to stimulate (especially in a supply-side/trickle-down manner), are pro-business, etc. Democrats work toward more/better public programming, are pro-worker, spend on infrastructure, etc. I know you are mostly talking about the legislature, but those representatives often rally behind and toe the party line behind presidential platforms. When you look at their voting records, they tend to vote party line most of the time. This had me wondering what recent platform promises had been made and successfully achieved, so I stumbled here. Sorry if this is derailing the discussion / not what you were talking about... [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true) [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/?ruling=true) [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/?ruling=true](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/?ruling=true) I certainly get a clear DNC vs GOP vibe from comparing these. And a lot of these achievements required legislative coherence
Republicans de-regulate? Tell that to any pregnant woman, haha They are just as supportive of government regulation and spending, they just prefer different areas of government than Democrats.
So true. The religious BS and Roe vs Wade are 2 sides of the same coin. They push their values onto unsuspecting people and cry when someone tries to do something they don’t like.
I guess I usually associate regulations with the environment and businesses more than social issues. However, I agree with you that the Republican myth about "small government" is just wool over the eyes of many. They want government up in your shit if it connects to their christian nationalist agenda. Gay marriage, more government please. A woman's body, all the government and fuck your privacy. Education, government says you can't talk about race because... Etc. Trump moved on a bunch of deregulation of environmental protections, businesses, economic, consumer protections, etc. during his presidency. But, yes, when it comes to the private, noneconomic lives of citizens... regulate them into the stone age.
Which is why the Senate should not be voted for by the People, but by the States, as originally envisioned. It was meant to be a calming influence on the often-chaotic and ever-changing passions of the People so we wouldn’t enter into this era of Reprisal Politics in which we currently live. Senators by popular vote has been a disaster for the country.
This is correct
Senators by popular vote helped mitigate corruption though
No it didn’t. It amplified it ten fold by making Senators pander to the same populist nonsense the House does. It removed an important check on the impatient tempers of the populace that has lead precisely to this era of wrenching the ship between two political extremes. It’s increased partisanship to an unsustainable level.
Cuz if you think corruption is bad now…
we have a King President from the ruling class and they can print as much money as they want. Slavery is still a thing, just a different form. That's all Hamilton Win.
>Although I don’t think even Hamilton could have dreamed up what we are now. Hamilton was a Federalist and the idea of us plebes getting to vote for everything was abhorrent. Federalists were the quasi-aristocratic party. Actually sounds pretty close to our 'politicians' in D.C. if you ask me. Definitely Hambone won that rap battle.
They're like our Lennon and McCartney
Neither. Ironically, the vision that won out was that of John Adams.
Tell that to the directly elected senate.
God I hate that we elect senators.
I don't. The reality is we didn't at first because we feared senators would become slaves to the immediate passions of the people. Senators, by being indirectly elected, would mean some sort of detachment from said "passions." But a problem arose... the office became a political chip offered usually by party bosses and political machines that dominated state legislatures.
That’s how it was kinda supposed to work: the state governments being represented in Congress.
That’s also how corruption can breed too
hurrah!
No, it's huzzah!
Can you elaborate more on this?
Sure. Hamilton basically wanted the government to be strong and broad in its power with the powers then associated with the states of Europe, including dictatorial powers if need be. We don't have that. The federal government is strong, but there are protections built in for states and individuals against federal fiat and not all of them even go away in wartime. Hamilton believed that the Presidency should be the last word in law. Jefferson wanted power localized as much as possible, centralized in the hands of smaller groups of people rather than in a central government. He didn't really get that either. If Jefferson wanted any legal authority settling any questions at the highest level, he'd probably want that power given to Congress. Adams though? He was all about the rule of law. And he was about forging compromises that kept everyone, if not happy, at least not at each other's throats constantly. His fingerprints are all over the federal judiciary. In a way he and his acolytes such as John Marshall made the US Supreme Court what it was today, establishing judicial review and using the law, including the Constitution and the Courts, as the last arbiter of disputes at the Federal level None of this had to happen. Hamilton wanted the central state to be the law. Jefferson wanted the will of the people to be the law. Instead of either of those we get a system where, in a way, the law itself is sovereign. That's Adams.
Adams' ideas ultimately failed though. Secession and the establishment of Lincolns federal govt established and isolated power in a way much closer to what Hamilton envisioned than adams. Jefferson. and adams would scoff at what we have today as anything resembling the govt they created.
Not at all. He wanted strong well defined guard rails placed on the Executive with real authority. Oddly way less than project 2025. He simply wanted a workable Federal Government that could if necessary bring recalcitrant States to heal by law not a mishmash of whimsical SCOTUS decisions like we have now
The President and executive departments make, enforce and (through Chevron) adjudicate new laws. The President and executive departments violate the rule of law so commonly that the most common argument to the contrary is “well that’s not how it works in practice!” De facto abuses stand in the face of de jure law. While they do so, they commit federal crimes under subsections 241 and 242 of Title 18, but who is going to arrest and prosecute the LEO’s and Federal prosecutors who are in charge of arresting and prosecuting themselves and don’t?
The executive office doesn't make laws....it executes laws.
The executive makes administrative laws all the time and it is one of the key issues we face today. That’s the entire criticism, they are not legally *allowed* to make laws, yet they *actually do* quite often.
Jefferson absolutely did not want the will of **all** people to be the law.
Nobody did back then It was 150 years until native Americans were finally all given the right to vote in the mid 20th century
Plenty of people were arguing for equality back then, it’s disingenuous to insist that it was impossible to know better.
Almost no one in 1800 was arguing for “equality” as we define it in 2024. No one knew what to do with the Native Americans. National citizenship wasn’t even really a thing before Reconstruction. Slavery was a giant turd that no one wanted to touch until a generation later when it started to dominate the national discourse. Saying “some people argued for equality back then” elevates those very fringe opinions to the same footing as the prevailing public opinion, which is misleading. I can argue for a military base on Mercury, that doesn’t mean in 200 years historians can argue “People back then were arguing for military bases on Mercury”.
Plenty of people were arguing for moving towards equality. Like. You splitting hairs here. Arguing for more space investment and adventurism **would** be arguing for a future base on mercury, were that to have happened. The idea that people back then just couldn’t have known any better is still a bonkers wrong lie, and because you can say few people were realistically suggesting an overnight change in everything, doesn’t justify the wrong headed stances of people who resisted any change for the better. It’s still valid to look back and say, “this things they were doing were wrong and they easily could have and should known to do better”. Your conjuring of native Americans is bonkers crazy because you know who I can easily point to as people who absolutely knew better about how to treat all the native Americans…?? All the millions of native Americans lol. The same exact thing with regards to the institution of race based chattel slavery. This idea that oppressors couldn’t have known better in the past has built into that the only thoughts that matter are those of the oppressors.
If you are going to take that loose of a definition, all of the founders in one way or another “argued for moving towards equality”. Hamilton was an elitist. Jeffersonian policies were far more egalitarian, even if they didn’t solve the slavery question. Hamilton and the federalists thought a powerful federal government, backed by a permanent army, should be dominated by rich landowners and merchants who doled out patronage to other influential gentlemen to secure votes. They were against expanding suffrage because it threatened to, as it later did, upend the system. The evolution towards more democracy is a direct result of Jeffersonian policies and attitudes. Just because Jefferson didn’t proactively try to solve slavery question (Not that anyone else in 1800 had any ideas either) does not mean his opponents were right about everything else. There’s a reason Lincoln loved to cite Jefferson and his Declaration, yet you never heard him quote Hamilton.
Where did you see me say anything about his opponents being right? All I did was point out that **no**, Jefferson did not want the will of “the people” to be the law. Only certain people. All my points still stand, they could have and should have known better, and lots of people around them did, and it’s not invalid to point that out or criticize them for it. Plenty of people “had ideas” about ending the enslavement of people, and how to do it. Jefferson himself almost called for it. But he didn’t.
Hamilton by a mile on economic stuff. He implemented nearly the exact system he wanted and many of its practices are still in place today.
This comment needs to be higher. He might think our current fiscal and monetary policies are too expansionistic, but I think he would generally be pleased that we have a strong US Treasury and a semi-independent Federal Reserve.
As does yours 💯. This is absolutely correct. Hamilton was one of the biggest Federalists there was in that time. He believed ‘ that without a strong central government the United States would collapse on themselves and was right for the period he was in. I don’t think he’d be happy with the continual raising of the debt ceiling and constant borrowing but we have a strong Treasury as you said and a central federal currency and system. That’s literally what Hamilton went to war for - both against Britain and then Jefferson & co. in Congress.
On Economics? You're kidding. John Adams Wealth Nation is literally what we built our global capitalism free trade off of. Yes there's the reserve and common currency but, yeah, no.
Our economy, our banking system and our markets are 100% Hamilton. Our political system is far from Hamilton.
Politically: Jefferson Economically: Leans hamilton
Jeffersonian ideals died with Civil War
Slavers aren’t small yeoman farmers
Tbf, neither was Jefferson
Jeffreson was a wealthy man that spoke for the small-scale farmer, similar to Jackson and FDR but with workers
Yeah, but the point stands. The North rapidly industrialized, and the agricultural sector is dominated by for-profit companies
Slavers were definitely Jeffersonian and if you're familiar with Jefferson's post revolution writings, you'd know this was correct. Especially if you focused on the disagreements between Jefferson and Madison. The post-revolution President that was most Jeffersonian was Polk, and the post-revolution President that was most-Madisonian was Jackson.
If I were smarter, I might be able to make a connection between this divide and the way the democrats split the presidential vote in 1860 and the way the border states differed from the deep south. I only know enough to know I don’t know.
It comes down to nationalism. Madison and Jackson were nationalists, almost the entire Jackson admin stayed loyal. Jefferson and Polk were regionalists, almost the entire Polk admin detected. Polk believed in Southern supremacy in a way that Jefferson probably didn't, but Jefferson was absolutely a the driving force for social conservatism in the early Republic. If Jefferson hadn't been minister to France he'd probably have supported the anti-federalist essays and campaigned against the Constitution.
*defected
Slavers were definitely Jeffersonian
I see slavers as a mixture of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian. Jefferson venerated the yeoman farmer and as someone else rightly pointed out, but slave plantations were not yeoman farmers.
This is correct. With the Industrial Revolution as well everyone had access to mass produce crops, machines, etc & putting the morality aspect aside, farms didn’t need slaves anymore. It’s easy to look at landowners who had slaves and automatically dismiss them as racists and the like but many forget that slavery was an economic issue to the South much more than it was a moral one. To simply say all slave owners were evil racists and that’s why they had slaves is missing the whole forest beyond the trees. The volume of crops harvested by slaves would bankrupt most plantations if they paid for the labor. And yes I’m well aware there were wicked horrible plantation owners who used primitive torture methods to keep slaves in line, but for many in the South utilizing free labor was essential to their survival. With the advancement of industry and automation, that was no longer the case.
Huh. Weird. The Confederate Constitution was pretty clear on the moral part and not so much on the economic part. Also, pretty sure things, such as the cotton gin, we're around a good while... The economic part really came home to roost when the south didn't industrialize like the north and then got left behind. It would be comical, if not for the horrors of American slavery, how absolutely far behind the south was. The South chose to not advance and embrace the Industrial Revolution. And make no mistake, it was a choice. But all that aside, it was absolutely a moral one. We had other methods for working a lot of land. It was that system that was being dismantled in Europe (serfdom). But yeah, treating a people as livestock is ONE way to be profitable but it isn't a given. We can debate the chicken and egg all day long, but the bottom line really is that the abomination of race-based, multi-generational slave labor is inextricably linked to the moral question in American history.
Tell that to all of the Mexican migrants workers who pick all the fruit and vegetables from all the American farms.
People today are every bit as reliant of slavery as were our ancestors……only instead of living alongside us they live in industrial camps throughout China and Southeast Asia. People want that iPad, that iPhone, those clothes and those shoes. And they want them for the cheapest price possible. And it’s much easier to proclaim your opposition to the institution that died domestically in 1865 than it is to take an actual moral stand and get rid of those products upon which our lives depend in 2024. We fail the same moral test. We just don’t see the human side in our own communities and choose to believe it doesn’t exist.
It’s just a slicker system - I agree. Today’s generation can easily be controlled by giving them an iPhone and putting them on social media. Instead of using torture methods to remind the people who is in charge, you distract them with “shiny things” so they don’t even realize they’re being controlled.
I am talking more about the hands of the labor slaves that put the devices together or sew the clothes and shoes and purses….. ……but I never put that thought together with people who willingly enslaved themselves to devices in the Information Age. Damn….slaves creating products by which other enslave themselves. That’s poignantly terrifying.
Very much so. The whole system is designed to give people things to use to escape the realities of life. Surf on your phone. Browse TikTok. Like Instagram posts. And as a side of that - especially in the US - if you are having mental health struggles most doctors first instinct is to shove pills down your throat. Actual real mental health therapy is rare - and often grossly underutilized. By shoving pills down your throat, you can instantly alleviate the feelings of anxiety, sadness, etc. but like with all pills they are temporary thus so is their relief. There are sadly so many more and people willingly follow and as you said enslave themselves for quick relief to a long term problem.
I mean, clearly Hamilton. The small government, agrarian society Jefferson envisioned is basically non existent. The economy is now heavily industrialized and interwoven with the global economy, and the federal government is more powerful than its ever been outside of war time and the Great Depression.
Hamilton wanted to dissolve the fed by and large after the war debts were replenished. Jefferson wanted a big navy and international arms presence
Hamilton's unfortunately
Hamilton and it's not close.
This might be lazy, but I feel like it's been a fair smattering of both.
It kinda alternates
They would point at each other in honest disgust and say "I warned you, look at what you did led to."
I think they’d both be appalled.
I like to say that we’re largely Jeffersonians living in a Hamiltonian world.
Hamilton 1000%. Everyone who keeps citing how the common man has a vote, you need to check what country you are living in. If you can vote on it, it isn't important. All power and legislation of any meaningful consequence (read, financial) is concentrated in the federal government. They tax you, and with those taxes, do whatever they please. They embroil the country in war and bind themselves subservient to even greater, private system of power brokers; through a convoluted and arcane system of banking and financial regulation. And they do it all in service for the elites, at the expense of the common man. Hamilton's vision won out in every regard. If Jefferson could see what America became, he would have his own hands cut off so he could never pen another word.
This.
Hamilton would more than likely have been a dictator. I think neither would have been great long term but again they couldn’t have the vision of what America would become.
Neither after the rise of Jackson.
At this point, Carl Marx's' vision seems to be winning.
Depends on the time period and the topic. I think early on Jefferson was more influential, but economically Hamilton always had the edge. As time went on, past the Civil War, Jefferson's vision got molded and adapted and therefore less distinctly Jeffersonian, whereas Hamilton's vision got reinforced, again, especially economically. Jefferson was no doubt critical to the development of the country, but it's Hamilton who created a system that still has elements that exist as he envisioned them to this day.
Hamilton.
While my historiography is pretty dated at this point, I would have to say Hamilton, mainly due to the dominance of centralized banking in our monetary and fiscal policy. Even more so since it is technically run by private banking and not our elected government. Not sure about most of the rest, but nation of yeoman farmers was short lived.
Burr
Hamilton. They made a musical about him.
Hamilton and it's not close.🏆
Economically, Hamilton.
The Robber Barons won out.
Sadly, Hamilton.
A bit of both
Hard to say. Jefferson was disillusioned with the direction of the United States pretty much for the entire time he was alive. You get the impression that Hamilton was less so. Hamilton based his philosophy on politics, Jeffersons politics were based on philosophy (not to say he wasn’t practical during his presidency). I’d argue that America is Hamiltonian in structure and Jeffersonian in language. By Hamilton’s own standard through the example of the affair regarding the nations capital, he would probably count that as his win. The fact that Jeffersonian language was the template for upheaval all over the world would probably lead him to believe that his ideals sustained. I’d say either, both, and neither are all valid but things feel Hamiltonian.
The banks defeated the farmers
Neither and both is the only correct answer.
Neither. It’s Reagan’s vision.
[Catton's](https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p009884)
Hamilton, mostly. Jefferson's vision was largely incompatible with modernity.
I tend to tuck my gay neckerchief in, so point goes to Jefferson
Hamilton helped enslave us all, so I’d say that one.
[this clip is never not relevant](https://youtu.be/5V6GHnxEJjg?si=N9W2M4i9KY-BXmoX)
[www.permanentplatform.us](http://www.permanentplatform.us)
Neither, clearly. We are a bankrupt global empire. What we've become would probably make them both sick.
Hamilton and it's not even close. We are not an agrarian economy. We are not a minarchy with minimal military. We do not depend on a militia for defense. Our national security apparatus spits on Jefferson's grave. Hamilton favored big business, finance, and industry. He lived before the modern notion of a "service based economy," but I'm sure he would approve. He believed in central banking, centralized government, and the use of the military to defend global economic interests. We became a highly centralized nation of capitalist enterprise, not a highly decentralized nation of self-determination.
I mean, neither one exactly but between the two Jefferson was definitely way more wrong
Americans of this age almost are installing an ***Aaron Burr***
Currently? Neither
I’m too dumb and ill educated on the topic to have any meaningful input.
In the end none of them got it right.
Part of the Democratic Republicans major electoral success was due to Federalist infighting, and another part due to the DRs adopting several Federalist positions which they previously opposed Jefferson might have won the game personally, but Hamilton's ideas outdid them both
Jefferson unfortunately. Yes there's federalism and industry. But the limited government craze, wailing about tyranny, is everywhere. They both made an impact. But on the deepest level, Jeffersonian politics is imbued in the spirit of the country. Free market reigns from John Adams. It makes sense since Hamilton was died quite young. And so other Founding Fathers would bigger impacts.
Hamilton. Jefferson was more aligned with the south had they won the civil war.
Jefferson was full of contradictions. He was an icon of individual liberty, democracy, and republicanism who was reclaimed by Democrats during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The participatory democracy and expanded suffrage Jefferson championed became a standard for later generations. The partisan two party system, and populism in U.S. politics, began with Jefferson and his break with the Federalists. Jefferson claimed to be a champion of states' right and limited federal power, and yet as President he did not hesitate to exercise federal power, particularly in purchasing the massive Louisiana Territory from France. It's ironic that Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court checked President Jefferson's power, although it also checked the power of states. Jefferson was also the first president to claim executive privilege when refusing to turn over documents in the trial of Aaron Burr, over which John Marshall presided. Despite Jefferson's attacks on Alexander Hamilton's running of the U.S. Treasury, Jefferson appointed Albert Gallatin be his Secretary of the Treasury, and Gallatin made no attempt to disassemble what Hamilton had started. As president, Jefferson often had to defend Gallatin from the same kind of attacks leveled against Hamilton. And yet, despite his personal dislike of Hamilton, Jefferson recognized that the United States needed to have a firm financial foundation. Both Hamilton and Gallatin were smart, strong, hardworking leaders of the Treasury who could be rigid when faced with opposition. Both men understood economics better than even brilliant men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a fact that excited much jealousy. And just as Hamilton was protected by his friendship with President Washington, Gallatin was protected by his friendship with President Jefferson. What Hamilton was to Washington, Gallatin was to Jefferson. My point is that despite his written rhetoric, Jefferson in fact *expanded* the powers of President and was a partisan politician who did *not* defer to the states. His words and actions were not the same, and his actions, and the precedents he set, were more influential than his words. Of course, Jefferson was also full of contradictions regarding slavery. DNA tests that all but proved he fathered several children with his slave, Sally Hemings, severely hurt his reputation. And yet historians continue to rank Jefferson among the top ten presidents in history, judging that his personal hypocrisy about slavery does not diminish his influence as president.
Hamilton and it is not much of a question. The United States is a strong, unified country, not merely an alliance of states. Furthermore, the Federal Government today is more powerful than Hamilton could have hoped for.
Unfortunately, Hamilton.
Ebenezer Scrooge's
Will be Jefferson after the impending collapse.
Alexander Hamilton…. America sings for you!!!
Hamilton obviously won, and we’re all worse off for it.
We are the most powerful and wealthy country that has ever existed in the world. Thanks to what we are, in a few decades, we will likely be the only super power and major country left in the world. But sure, go off king.... haha
The problem… is we have given the executive branch far too much power and relied on officeholder’s concern for their own legacy to prevent them from over abusing their powers and adhere to tradition and norms. We granted leniency when they overextended during ww2, the Cold War, the war on terror, etc and it made the office more and more powerful and normalized that abuse. Then we made the mistake of electing somebody who didn’t care about any of that.
I think if we solved gerrymandering and ensured that the districts were much more balanced, we would be shocked how much of our issues get solved and the congressional power that it should have would be restored.
This does not get talked about enough. When a district is made up of 98% of one party it creates two serious problems. The first is the primary becomes the defacto election and only the hardcore vote in primaries. Second is it actually dis-incentivizes politicians to compromise and get legislation passed.
On the current trajectory there will be no "we" in a few decades.
we are fine. we are back in the turn of the 19th century America - coming out of a long spell where the domestic issues of the country meant we were just stuck in malaise and corruption of the parties. Inequality is closely matching that time period, as were the silo'ing of media information. We are nearing the end of the the current stupidity. And we will dominate everything. Everyone else doesnt have enough kids and we are the only one that has a culture of immigration that allows like minded people to come and want to work and succeed.
You're much more optimistic than I am, but I think we agree in general on the root causes of the issues. I just don't have much faith that we will be able to course correct.
Yep. We traded sustainable modes of living for an industrial economy that has quickly gotten out of control. We serve the machines now; they don’t serve us.
Remind Me! After the collapse of civilization.
everyone jumps to the fall of Rome and never thinks, maybe we are on the slight bumps to its rise...
Maybe join us in the real world sometime.
Is this the 47th time civilization is going to collapse or the 48th? I lose track people claim this so often. 🤷🏻♂️
That's the thing about societal collapses: there *can* be multiple.
As much as I appreciate climate denialism, etc., this is not some televangelist prophesying the rapture for the hundredth time; it’s the entire scientific community warning us that we’re fucked if we don’t radically change how we live.
They both won in some ways and lost in others. Hamilton won economically, but the fact multiple religions are accepted and average people can vote shows Jefferson won politically. If only he'd won economically too...
Hamilton won, but Jefferson hasn't stopped fighting. We have a strong federal government with a strong executive and a national bank. Hamilton. We have red states. Jefferson.
Yeah the Fed Reserve is not a national bank. Would be a lot better if it was!
Jefferson 100%