THE CREATOR OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
There is a title for Alexander Hamilton that should be chiseled on every monument to his name - "The Creator of the American Dream". Hamilton did more to create a home for the ideal of individual accomplishment and success than any other American. His early life shows where his belief in this ideal and his fervor for its support originated. As a young man growing up in the Carribean Islands Hamilton longed for prestige and notoriety and to escape his low status in society. Having been abandoned by his father and then left orphaned when his mother died at age 11 he inherited one of the lowest rungs of society. He was desparate for the chance to prove himself and change his situation. He even craved war as a means of distinguishing himself. When he arrived in America he recognized the cause of independence as an opportunity to create a society in his new country where a man could make his own future and escape the limiting traditions of the past. His pre-war pamphleteering, his service in the Revolutionsary War, his unequalled efforts to rally a constitutional convention, and his efforts advocating federal debt assumption were all efforts to bring independence and union about. He knew these measures were essential to strengthen his adopted country, creating this new land of opportunity.
Hamilton also understood the value of human potential for others. Later in his life when Hamilton spoke against the slave trade he spoke of the lost human potential it inflicted. He didn't see the slaves as inferior but as beings stuck with no chance to better themselves. This was a rare perspective in his time.
There is an important difference between Hamilton and most other founders - especially Jefferson. Other founders were still fighting freedom "from" something - from government or banks or manufacturing. Hamilton got over those phobias and sought freedom for something. He wanted his country to move forward and grow rather than to exhist in a kind of four-corners offense, trying to hold onto some sort of pastoral utopia. He also knew that like Mandeville's beehive the nation woud only prosper if given the tools to grow - including a stronger central government, banking, manufacturing, trade and a strong dose of self-interested motivation.
As Hamilton set about to stabilize the U.S. economy, to create a government and a financial system that would make his country the greatest nation in world history it was all with the underlying idea that a man could create his own future. His vision and confidence is reflected in his statement on the creation of a government by choice in Federalist #1 - second paragraph:
"The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences, nothing less than the existence of the UNION---the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed---the fate of an empire, in many respects, the most intersting in the world. It has been frequently remarked, that, it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, to decide by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are for ever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis, at which we are arrived, may with propriety be regarded as the period when that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."
He and his fellow founders answered this question and changed the entire world with their answer. The belief he had was that America held a special destiny to be a place where men could create their future. We have come to call this idea THE AMERICAN DREAM, and the principles it contains still resonate from this nation more than any other. It represents the limitless potential of beings who are given their freedom and not inhibited by forces of government or their envious fellow citizens to hamper their success. Hamilton more than any other founder had a vision for what America could become and took the steps - despite great opposition by those with less vision - to make America what it has come to be. He said clearly with these words: "There are strong minds in every walk of life that will overcome the disadvantages of their birth, and will command tribute due to their merit." At a much earlier age (18) he gave his version of the American theme that two years later Jefferson expressed more famously in the Declaration of Independence. "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." Those rights included the right to be free to succeed according to one's ability and effort.
HAMILTON'S CONTRIBUTIONS - THE POST-REVOLUTION CRISIS
Alexander Hamilton was the most brilliant of the founding fathers. He contributed more intellectually to the founding of our nation than any other man. His combined contributions to the formation of America's Constitution, economy, law, military and government are unparalleled. In the early days of revolt he was among the most admired anti-Tory polemicists in America while still a teenager. He was also unique as one who was a premier intellectual contributor to the founding of our nation as well as a soldier in the revolution - an actual hero in battle. He had no inherited fortune like many of his fellow founders. He was the quintessential, self-made man. He was Washington's most trusted advisor during the war and his presidency and had Washington's complete devotion. This website is dedicated - in aggressive but polite Hamiltonian style - to introducing Hamilton to those who haven't yet learned of him and to defend him against those who would or have defamed him. If the truth were known of his exploits - and it is largely unknown - he would stand only behind George Washington as the greatest of our founding fathers.
Perhaps - in a manner of speaking - Alexander Hamilton's greatest legacy is the Manhattan skyline. Hamilton secured America's financial prosperity through sound and visionary economic policies. Despite seething, sectional opposition from Jefferson, Madison and other Southern slave owners, George Washington and the congress adopted almost all of Hamilton's policies. Many of the attacks and misinformation about Hamilton are founded in the ante-bellum period as Southerners invented political smears that served Southern political power and the preservation of slavery. Hamilton's chief political opponents in the South were the anti-federalists Jefferson and Madison, who spent years attacking Hamilton (and Washington) over economic policies they literally couldn't comprehend. Anti-federalists supported policies for an agrarian-only economy (because they were often plantation owners), complete repudiation of America's debts to Europe, and an economy with no central banking - all policies that were potentially or eventually disastrous for America but which they saw as a benefit to the interest of Southern political dominance. As they attacked Hamilton's bank - and instituted partisan politics for the first time in America to defeat it - Hamilton created an economic boom from the post-revolution debt crisis and founded America's lasting economic greatness.
POST REVOLUTION CRISIS
As Americans today consider the U.S. debt crisis and the terrible situation our nation finds itself in they should be reminded of the greatest economic challenge our nation ever faced. That time was the time immediately following the Revolutionary War. As the colonies emerged from the war it is hard to see who the founders were that had an idea of where the nation was headed. Many wanted to go back to their home states and keep the federal government week. These were typically citizens of the larger states; Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York for examples. Hamilton was one of the few founders who understood the precarious circumstance the nation found itself in. The country had a debt crisis unlike any since. The war had left the states with large debts and there was not a common interest in how the nation should proceed. Hamilton found an important and insightful ally at this time in James Madison. This team of war veterans and geniuses understood that the nation was weak and vulnerable. It was these two men who rallied the colonies for the convening of a Constitutional Convention and assured that the constitution would be ratified. Their partnership ended there however. Hamilton wanted to proceed with a plan for the Federal Government to assume the debts of all the states. It was here that Hamilton's financial genius stood alone among the founders. Madison and Jefferson opposed this idea and fought it until Jefferson realized he could use debt assumption as a bargaining chip to get the nation's capital moved closer to Jefferson's neighborhood. However, it was Hamilton whose vision was the clearest on what assumption would mean to the country. "A national debt - if not excessive - will be to us a national blessing." Not because borrowing is wonderful, but because the country would be able to establish credit and consolidate the states into a union that had not previously existed.
