Jefferson And Heroism

[The Wrath]

Hamilton's flaws were greater than Jefferson's. Jefferson, despite all his flaws, was the most responsible for constructing a system in which slavery could not survive. This was his primary redeeming action. Hamilton's primary redeeming action was ruining Aaron Burr's political career by being shot.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Hamilton's flaws were greater than Jefferson's. Jefferson, despite all his flaws, was the most responsible for constructing a system in which slavery could not survive. This was his primary redeeming action. Hamilton's primary redeeming action was ruining Aaron Burr's political career by being shot.

Hamilton's policies when he was Secretary of the Treasury put the U.S. on a sound fiscal and financial basis. This made it possible for Jefferson (unconstitutionally, by the way) to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France. I would rate Hamilton's cleaning up of the god-awful financial mess the U.S. was in at the end of the Revolution as Hamilton's major contribution to our well being. At the end of the Revolutionary War there was a saying -- not worth a Continental --. That is to say the scrip money issued by the Continental Congress was precisely as valuable as any other piece of paper of the same size and weight.

In addition Hamilton saw commerce and industry as the path to the future. Jefferson was a fuddy-duddy who believed the U.S. should be primarily and agricultural nation. Fortunately, for you and me, Hamilton's vision prevailed.

You are right about Burr. He was a Disaster. Burr would have fit right in with the current political scene, for sure.

Bob Kolker

[The Wrath]

Hamilton's financial scheme caused more problems than it solved. Sure, it solved the debt situation. It also consolidated financial power somewhere that it should most certainly not be...the federal government.

While I like Hamilton's industrial vision better than Jefferson's agrarian one, we're talking about the morality of political systems here. Jefferson's was better. There is nothing inherently more moral about industry than there is about farms.

[Miles White]

I personaly think that James Madison is the most underated president. He actually reduced the size of the government to be small enough to fund only off of tariffs to take the burden of taxation off of the common peoples shoulders. Even though tariffs are still coercive, you got to admit there was no president in history that came closer to abolishing taxes than James Madison. What a marvelous man he was, tis a shame their arn't more presidents like him.