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Your thoughts on Alexander Hamilton?

JC Callender

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Would you consider him one of the top 5 most influential Americans? And would we have a strong federal government without him?

Any other thoughts are welcome as well.
 
Can't help myself.

 
Would you consider him one of the top 5 most influential Americans? And would we have a strong federal government without him?

Any other thoughts are welcome as well.

I use him all the time.

He ruled in politics.

If he didn't want you to get elected he would write and you would not get elected.

He died this way when one Candidate challenged him to a duel.

He founded Wall Street enabling us to become an industrial Nation.

We have him on the ten dollar bill.
 
federalist 84- hamliton - But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns.

Hamilton states the constitution is created to regulate the interest of the nation, but not to regulate the people and their personal business.
 
From the time I first learned of the founders in grammar school, then did some additional research on him in the school library, Hamilton's been my fav founder!

He was multi-dimensional, multi-talented, lived life to the fullest, well read, well educated, cultured, had the guts to fight a duel, and was quite the ladies' man!

What's not to admire? :thumbs:
 
from the time i first learned of the founders in grammar school, then did some additional research on him in the school library, hamilton's been my fav founder!

He was multi-dimensional, multi-talented, lived life to the fullest, well read, well educated, cultured, had the guts to fight a duel, and was quite the ladies' man!

What's not to admire? :thumbs:

iam a james madsion man myself, a short but brainy little guy, who did more for our constitution, BOR, and for right to property.
 
iam a james madsion man myself, a short but brainy little guy, who did more for our constitution, BOR, and for right to property.
He defined the Supreme Court as the final arbitrator of the Constitution, which makes him good by me too.

[though some legalists despise him for this, as well]
 
he defined the supreme court as the final arbitrator of the constitution, which makes him good by me too.

[though some legalists despise him for this, as well]

iam not sure of that, i seem to have read that madison says the states should be the final authority on whats constitutional, but i will have to look it up again to be sure.

i think its in Madison’s Report on The Virginia Resolutions (1799-1800),
 
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iam not sure of that, i seem to have read that madison says the states should be the final authority on whats constitutional, but i will have to look it up again to be sure.

i think its in Madison’s Report on The Virginia Resolutions (1799-1800),
Don't waste your time looking!

I was wrong.

I was thinking of John Marshall! [in Marbury v. Madison]

:doh
 
the guts to fight a duel

He fired his pistol up in the air, which apparently was the idea. You don't actually duel, you both do that instead, then come to a gentlemen's understanding. Burr was having none of that and took advantage of the wasted shot, shooting Hamilton.
 
Would you consider him one of the top 5 most influential Americans? And would we have a strong federal government without him?

Any other thoughts are welcome as well.



Well, I already posted at length in a thread on most influential Americans, but I cannot recall where it was.

I'll say that based on Ron Chernow's biography, Hamilton was easily one of the most influential Americans.
 
federalist 84- hamliton - But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns.

Hamilton states the constitution is created to regulate the interest of the nation, but not to regulate the people and their personal business.

it worked that way forever till FDR hijacked it with the commerce clause.
utter power grab by the federal government. that really began the downfall.
 
He fired his pistol up in the air, which apparently was the idea. You don't actually duel, you both do that instead, then come to a gentlemen's understanding. Burr was having none of that and took advantage of the wasted shot, shooting Hamilton.
Or Burr feared the shot may have been an attempt & miss!

But I stand by my comment: It took some guts, because it's inherently hazardous, as can be seen by the subsequent fatal results!
 
Or Burr feared the shot may have been an attempt & miss!

But I stand by my comment: It took some guts, because it's inherently hazardous, as can be seen by the subsequent fatal results!

Oh, I'm not saying it doesn't take guts. I was dumping on Burr, because **** that guy.
 
Yeah, Burr was one of the worst American politicians ever produced in this country. Hamilton was flawed (his tail chasing) but he was still a noble and far seeing American leader.
 
Would you consider him one of the top 5 most influential Americans? And would we have a strong federal government without him?

Any other thoughts are welcome as well.

I adore him. I think he was the greatest individual founding father. I also think Madison was a far more effective and useful counterpart to him than Jefferson.
 
I adore him. I think he was the greatest individual founding father. I also think Madison was a far more effective and useful counterpart to him than Jefferson.

What do you like about him? And do you think he would be pleased with how our federal government has turned out so far?
 
Yeah, Burr was one of the worst American politicians ever produced in this country. Hamilton was flawed (his tail chasing) but he was still a noble and far seeing American leader.

A noble adulterer?
 
it worked that way forever till FDR hijacked it with the commerce clause.
utter power grab by the federal government. that really began the downfall.

Others seem to think that the 14th and 16th amendments were pretty terrible 'power grabs' too. One might be forgiven for envisaging a stereotypical conservative believing that your Founders and your Constitution were a pinnacle of human civilization... so perfect that their system somehow went downhill all the way :doh

Some comments made by Thomas Jefferson seem a more reasonable counterpoint to such views:
"I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our particular security is in possession of a written constitution.... Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time and trial show are still wanting."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803


"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading, and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead.

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816


"But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another and all others in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will. The dead are not even things. . . .

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824
 
My thoughts on Hamilton?

Thank you Aaron Burr.
 
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