Hamilton vs Jefferson

[Gordie WH]

Ron Paul’s “Restore America” agenda is one side of an argument in the long history of the US’s internal conflict between the Federalists (Hamilton) and anti-federalists (Jefferson and George Mason).  His agenda could be more aptly named “Restore the American Republic”.  The phrase, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” comes from Jefferson’s first inaugural speech.  The first five US Presidents warned that imperialism would lead to the internal destruction of the Republic by betraying the principles of liberty. Two of those principles were non-interventionism with foreign nations and the prevention of power centralized in a federal government.  One opponent of these principles was Alexander Hamilton. Ron Paul is on the Jeffersonian side of this argument.

The argument is still alive.  Ron Paul differs from other presidential candidates by advocating for a decrease in the scope of the Federal government.  Despite their rhetoric, the other candidates favor using big government as a means of spreading the gospel of democracy at the point of a bayonet and the status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Alexander Hamilton’s argument was reinforced by the Protestant postmillennial conviction that a pervasive federal government be the vehicle for converting the world to democracy, eradicating the world’s ills, and preparing for the Second Coming.  Further support was gleaned from the WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) notion that they were God’s chosen people to “regenerate, uplift, educate” the peoples of the earth from a state of sin and that these primitive pagan uncivilized savage sub-humans were incapable of self-governance.  It was a WASP mandate from God, indeed the duty, of WASP’s to spread their Gospel, even to extermination according to General Sherman under President Grant as in the case of Native Americans.  The culmination of this WASP ideology can be seen in the notion of Manifest Destiny.  The vehicle is powered by borrowing and spending (fiat Federal Reserve Notes nowadays).

The price we pay is the loss of liberty at home as we join the imperial quest for world domination by manipulation and coercion.  To garner popular support of this quest, national defense was/is featured by virtue of having enemies.  Enemies are conjured as in Vietnam and Iraq, and sold to the public assuring blowback.  As foreseen by our early Presidents and predicted by others, US citizens have become victims of coercion at the hand of the executive power of the presidency.

By historical standards the American Republic is virtually dead.  Ron and Rand Paul are two politicians attempting to rejuvenate Jefferson’s argument for republicanism.  The word "democracy" does not appear in either our Declaration of Independence nor the US Constitution. The Founders were wary of what Tocqueville later called the “tyranny of the majority”. The Electoral College supposedly filters the majority’s choice to prevent unsuitable candidates from election.  In fact, we do not vote directly for presidential candidates.  Our votes are represented by members of the electoral college.

The basis of the Hamilton/Jefferson issue can be used to place the positions of current presidential candidates into context.  Most if not all of the candidate’s positions have a history.  Awareness of that history can lead voters to make more informed choices.

SOURCES:

The Costs of War, Denson

      Chapter 3, Justin Raimondo

      Chapter 8, Joseph Stromberg

      Chapter 9, Murray Rothbard

As We Go Marching, John Flynn

[Gordie WH]

Funding “American Interests”: Alexander Hamilton’s argument wins the day.

The issue of how the US should fund war, or any foreign aid for that matter, was argued under the Articles of Confederation, before there was a National Constitution.  Part of the history of that issue is presented in this Mises article.   The author’s website is worth a look.

The protection of “American interests” has a long history.   President Jefferson sent a new American squadron of ships to protect American interests along Africa’s Barbary Coast, the First Barbary War.   He did this unilaterally.   In February 1802, after the fact, Congress passed an enabling act to authorize Jefferson’s deployment.  That enabling act was not a formal Congressional Declaration of War, nor was the Second Barbary War under President Madison. The precedent for all succeeding wars by resolution was set.

American interests were global long before Teddy Roosevelt initiated the American Empire.  It can be endlessly debated as to whether or not the protection of those interests was/is aggressive.  Protection means self-defense; defense of territory as well as of trade and trade routes.  Unfortunately the world is not a free trade zone as we have now among the states in the US.

The basis of the aggressive side of the debate, IMO, lies in the Christian Reconstructionism movement as represented by Gingrich and Santorum.   I see this movement as the global extension of Manifest Destiny.  The essence of Manifest Destiny is the belief that the US has the God given right to dominate the world.

The self-defense side of the argument currently focuses on a Muslim jihadist threat.  A previous threat used in the argument was Communist expansion.  Communist expansion ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The Muslin/Christian/Judeo conflict is over a thousand years old and ongoing.

Thanks be to the continual research by historians and to the internet.  Otherwise we would be left with nothing but politically correct versions of history, and without the internet, we’d be virtually left in the dark.

[Ray Kirkus]

Thanks for posting. Good read and quite true as things stand today.

[Janet Blazen]

Gordie, Thanks for posting this very important article.............America had better watch out. I don't think MANY of the people even have a clue what is about to happen in America if Ron Paul or someone with his views doesn't get in the White House ?