Get in the Ring: Thomas Jefferson v. Alexander Hamilton
Two Founding Fathers duke it out in the battle of their quotes for the direction of America’s heart and soul.
Announcer: Welcome to the Battle of the Dawn of the 19th Century!
In this corner, we have Thomas Jefferson, born in 1743 and raised in the rural country of Shadwell, Virginia. Although Jefferson lost his father as a teen, his parents valued education and set him on his path to become a scholar. With all of Jefferson’s accomplishments, he wished to be remembered, not as the 3rd U.S. President who negotiated the remarkable Louisiana-Purchase or who signed the act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves Act of 1807, but to be remembered (on his gravestone at Monticello) as the man who was the “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.”
Since Thomas Jefferson inherited and owned slaves, it is hard for 21st century Americans to understand the duality of Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on freedom, but clearly his writings exuded his disdain for the deplorable institution of slavery. As Catherine Kerrison explained in her book, Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America, Jefferson’s beloved wife, Martha, made him promise, on her deathbed, to never marry again (because she suffered from wicked step-mother syndrome x2 and feared for her two daughters). At age 39, Jefferson made and kept that promise. But, we now know through DNA studies that Jefferson fathered a child in 1801 (Harriet Hemmings) and most likely more children, with his young slave, Sally Hemings, who was Martha’s half-sister. Historians suggest that Hemings brokered a deal with Jefferson to free her children fathered by Jefferson as adults, and teach them skills to support themselves, which Jefferson did.
As a committed agrarian, Jefferson fought for individual liberty and distrusted a strong, centralized government.
In this corner, we have Alexander Hamilton, born illegitimately in 1755 or 1757 in Nevis, British West Indies, to a Scottish drifter named James Hamilton and mother, Rachel Lavine, daughter of gentry, who was still married to her husband, John Michael Lavine. Rachel left Lavine and her first son around 1752 and Lavine would divorce Rachel in 1758, under much public scandal, leaving young Alexander left to endure his mother’s shame for not being legally married to his father. James Hamilton would abandon his family in 1765 when Alexander, about 11, started working as a clerk for two New York merchants in St. Croix. After his mother died in 1768, he advanced from bookkeeper to manager.
Instead of lamenting his status at birth, Alexander Hamilton’s brilliant mind, combined with his powerful ambition, impressed his benefactors who employed him, and they helped paved his path to immigrate to New York City where he would thrive and study in the urban environment. Commissioned as a captain in the Revolutionary War, he demonstrated his bravery in battle. In February 1777, George Washington invited him to become his aide where he earned his trust to perform important military missions and with his fluency in French, he became an important liaison to French generals and admirals.
After the Americans won the war in 1783, Hamilton feverously advocated that the Articles of the Confederation created a weak, national government. Hamilton was one of the chief authors of the Federalist papers, arguing for a strong, national government and developed his strong political skills of cunning persuasion. As the first secretary of the U.S. treasury from 1789–95, he argued strongly for the establishment of a national bank, which opened for business in December 1791. The charter expired in 1811 when James Madison’s administration did not renew it.
In a letter to his childhood friend, Edward Stevens, November 11, 1769, he wrote “My ambition is prevalent so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune, etc., condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.”
Hamilton was known to have little control over his temper, and challenged James Monroe to a duel in 1797 regarding the “Reynolds affair” and fortunately it was mitigated, but Hamilton would end up losing his fateful duel with Aaron Burr in 1804. He is considered one of the most influential founding fathers who was determined to create a strong, centralized national government that would become the wealthy world power we know today. Some would consider him to be a neo-con warmonger, desiring money and power over individual liberty.
Announcer: A verbose Hamilton comes out swinging on the Articles of the Confederation:
“…That there are important defects in the system of the Fœderal Government is acknowledged by the Acts of all those States, which have concurred in the present Meeting; That the defects, upon a closer examination, may be found greater and more numerous, than even these acts imply, is at least so far probable, from the embarrassments which characterise the present State of our national affairs—foreign and domestic, as may reasonably be supposed to merit a deliberate and candid discussion, in some mode, which will unite the Sentiments and Councils of all the States. In the choice of the mode your Commissioners are of opinion, that a Convention of Deputies from the different States, for the special and sole purpose of entering into this investigation, and digesting a plan for supplying such defects as may be discovered to exist, will be entitled to a preference from consideration, which will occur, without being particularised…
…Under this impression, Your Commissioners, with the most respectful deference, beg leave to suggest their unanimous conviction, that it may essentially tend to advance the interests of the union, if the States, by whom they have been respectively delegated, would themselves concur, and use their endeavours to procure the concurrence of the other States, in the appointment of Commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Fœderal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an Act for that purpose to the United States in Congress Assembled, as when agreed to, by them, and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State will effectually provide for the same.” Alexander Hamilton, Annapolis Convention, September 14, 1786
“The most considerable of the remaining objections is that the plan of the convention contains no bill of rights. Among other answers given to this, it has been upon different occasions remarked that the constitutions of several of the States are in a similar predicament. I add that New York is of the number. And yet the opposers of the new system, in this State, who profess an unlimited admiration for its constitution, are among the most intemperate partisans of a bill of rights. To justify their zeal in this matter, they allege two things: one is that, though the constitution of New York has no bill of rights prefixed to it, yet it contains, in the body of it, various provisions in favor of particular privileges and rights, which, in substance amount to the same thing; the other is, that the Constitution adopts, in their full extent, the common and statute law of Great Britain, by which many other rights, not expressed in it, are equally secured. To the first I answer, that the Constitution proposed by the convention contains, as well as the constitution of this State, a number of such provisions...
…I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
On the subject of the liberty of the press, as much as has been said, I cannot forbear adding a remark or two: in the first place, I observe, that there is not a syllable concerning it in the constitution of this State; in the next, I contend, that whatever has been said about it in that of any other State, amounts to nothing. What signifies a declaration, that "the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved"? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights...” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #84
“…In the plan of a Constitution, which I drew up, while the convention was sitting & which I communicated to Mr. Madison about the close of it, perhaps a day or two after, the Office of President has no greater duration than for three years...” Alexander Hamilton to Timothy Pickering, September 16, 1803
Announcer: Get in there, Jefferson! Mr. Jefferson was dallying about as a diplomat in France during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia.
“My general plan would be to make the states one as to every thing connected with foreign nations, and several as to every thing purely domestic. But with all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing or that ever did exist. It's greatest defect is the imperfect manner in which matters of commerce have been provided for. It has been so often said, as to be generally believed, that Congress have no power by the confederation to enforce any thing, e.g. contributions of money. It was not necessary to give them that power expressly; they have it by the law of nature.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, August 4, 1787
Announcer: What about the idea of a Supreme Court in the Constitution?
“I fear, dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis [as when the Alien and Sedition Laws were enacted], with this difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single-handed in the present assaults on the Constitution. But its assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Mr. Nicholas, Dec. 1821
“[John Marshall’s] twistifications in the case of Marbury, in that of Burr, & the late Yazoo case, shew how dexterously he can reconcile law to his personal biases.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 25 May 1810
Announcer: Mr. Hamilton is full of passion when advocating for a strong supreme court:
“… According to the plan of the convention, all judges who may be appointed by the United States are to hold their offices DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR; which is conformable to the most approved of the State constitutions and among the rest, to that of this State. Its propriety having been drawn into question by the adversaries of that plan, is no light symptom of the rage for objection, which disorders their imaginations and judgments. The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government. In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body. And it is the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.
Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments...
…The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution….
…NEXT to permanency in office, nothing can contribute more to the independence of the judges than a fixed provision for their support. The remark made in relation to the President is equally applicable here. In the general course of human nature, A POWER OVER A MAN's SUBSISTENCE AMOUNTS TO A POWER OVER HIS WILL. And we can never hope to see realized in practice, the complete separation of the judicial from the legislative power, in any system which leaves the former dependent for pecuniary resources on the occasional grants of the latter….” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #78
Announcer: Mr. Jefferson, when George Washington asked you to become his Secretary of State, you said you had planned to go back to France. What changed your mind?
“I returned home to a country with a new constitution and a new president. George Washington asked me to be in his cabinet, and I served as Secretary of State. There were no political parties at the time, and President Washington wanted to include all opinions in his cabinet. But unfortunately, Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury, didn't agree with me on a single issue.
“I didn't trust Hamilton or the Federalists. I believed he wanted to create a government that would favor the rich. When the Federalists, under President Adams, threatened to go to war against France, I opposed them. And then I believed some of the measures they had adopted such as the Alien and Sedition Acts threatened America's basic liberties. So I was pleased when my friends formed a second party--the Republicans--and asked me to be their candidate for President.” Thomas Jefferson interview with Mr. Wright
Announcer: Mr. Hamilton, why should there be a National Bank? This is not in the Constitution.
“The Secretary of the Treasury having perused with attention the papers containing the opinions of the Secretary of State and Attorney General concerning the constitutionality of the bill for establishing a National Bank proceeds according to the order of the President to submit the reasons which have induced him to entertain a different opinion…
…In entering upon the argument it ought to be premised, that the objections of the Secretary of State and Attorney General are founded on a general denial of the authority of the United States to erect corporations. The latter indeed expressly admits, that if there be any thing in the bill which is not warranted by the constitution, it is the clause of incorporation…
…Most of the arguments of the Secretary of State which have not been considered in the foregoing remarks, are of a nature rather to apply to the expediency than to the constitutionality of the bill. They will however be noticed in the discussions which will be necessary in reference to the particular heads of the powers of the government which are involved in the question. Those of the Attorney General will now properly come under review.
His first observation is, that the power of incorporation is not expressly given to congress. This shall be conceded, but in this sense only, that it is not declared in express terms that congress may erect a corporation. But this cannot mean, that there are not certain express powers, which necessarily include it….
…Hence it appears, that the enumerations which have been attempted by the Attorney General are so imperfect, as to authorise no conclusion whatever. They therefore have no tendency to disprove, that each and every of the powers to which they relate, includes that of erecting corporations; which they certainly do, as the subsequent illustrations will more & more evince. It is presumed to have been satisfactorily shewn in the course of the preceding observations:
1. That the power of the government, as to the objects intrusted to its management, is in its nature sovereign.
2. That the right of erecting corporations is one, inherent in & inseparable from the idea of sovereign power.
3. That the position, that the government of the United States can exercise no power but such as is delegated to it by its constitution, does not militate against this principle.
4. That the word necessary in the general clause can have no restrictive operation, derogating from the force of this principle, indeed, that the degree in which a measure is, or is not necessary, cannot be a test of constitutional right, but of expediency only.
5. That the power to erect corporations is not to be considered, as an independent & substantive power but as an incidental & auxiliary one; and was therefore more properly left to implication, than expressly granted.
6. that the principle in question does not extend the power of the government beyond the prescribed limits, because it only affirms a power to incorporate for purposes within the sphere of the specified powers.
And lastly that the right to exercise such a power, in certain cases, is unequivocally granted in the most positive & comprehensive terms.
And yet such a disposition of the thing would amount to the erection of a corporation. For the true definition of a corporation seems to be this. It is a legal person, or a person created by act of law, consisting of one or more natural persons authorised to hold property or a franchise in succession in a legal as contradistinguished from a natural capacity.
Let the illustration proceed a step further…”
Announcer: Sir, please consolidate your thoughts as we are running out of time.
“…The Attorney General opposes to this reasoning, the following observation. “To borrow money presupposes the accumulation of a fund to be lent, and is secondary to the creation of an ability to lend.” This is plausible in theory, but it is not true in fact. In a great number of cases, a previous accumulation of a fund equal to the whole sum required, does not exist. And nothing more can be actually presupposed, than that there exist resources, which put into activity to the greatest advantage by the nature of the operation with the government, will be equal to the effect desired to be produced. All the provisions and operations of government must be presumed to contemplate things as they really are…
…The Secretary of State objects to the relation here insisted upon, by the following mode of reasoning “To erect a bank, says he, & to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank, creates a subject of commerce, so does he, who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines. Yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought & sold is not to prescribe regulations for buying & selling: thus making the regulation of commerce to consist in prescribing rules for buying & selling. ”Alexander Hamilton on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank, February 23, 1791
Announcer: Is the audience asleep?
Announcer: Mr. Jefferson, do you concur with Mr. Hamilton’s vision of a National Bank?
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that “all powers not delegated to the U.S. by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people” (10th Amendment) to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless feild of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, & the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the U.S. by the Constitution for reasons set forth in.”Thomas Jefferson's memo to George Washington regarding establishment of National Bank, February 15, 1791
“When I embarked in the government, it was with a determination to intermeddle not at all with the legislature, and as little as possible with my co-departments. The first and only instance of variance from the former part of my resolution, I was duped into by the Secretary of the treasury, and made a tool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned me the deepest regret… To this justification of opinions, expressed in the way of conversation, against the views of Colo. Hamilton, I beg leave to add some notice of his late charges against me in Fenno’s gazette: for neither the stile, matter, nor venom of the pieces alluded to can leave a doubt of their author. Spelling my name and character at full length to the public, while he conceals his own under the signature of ‘an American’ he charges me 1. with having written letters from Europe to my friends to oppose the present constitution while depending. 2. with a desire of not paying the public debt. 3. with setting up a paper to decry and slander the government. 1. The first charge is most false… You will there see that my objection to the constitution was that it wanted a bill of rights securing freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from standing armies, trial by jury, and a constant Habeas corpus act. Colo. Hamilton’s was that it wanted a king and house of lords. The sense of America has approved my objection and added the bill of rights, not the king and lords... He wished the general government should have power to make laws binding the states in all cases whatsoever. Our country has thought otherwise: has he acquiesced?...” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, September 9, 1792
“…In the gratification of this baleful spirit, we not only hear the jacobin news-papers continually ring with odious insinuations and charges against many of our most virtuous citizens; but, not satisfied with this, a measure new in this country has been lately adopted to give greater efficacy to the system of defamation—periodical pamphlets issue from the same presses, full freighted with misrepresentation and falshood, artfully calculated to hold up the opponents of the Faction to the jealousy and distrust of the present generation and if possible, to transmit their names with dishonor to posterity…
…I dare appeal to my immediate fellow citizens of whatever political party for the truth of the assertion, that no man ever carried into public life a more unblemished pecuniary reputation, than that with which I undertook the office of Secretary of the Treasury; a character marked by an indifference to the acquisition of property rather than an avidity for it…
…The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me.
This confession is not made without a blush. I cannot be the apologist of any vice because the ardour of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang, which it may inflict in a bosom eminently intitled to all my gratitude, fidelity and love. But that bosom will approve, that even at so great an expence, I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from a name, which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness. The public too will I trust excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defence against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum…” Alexander Hamilton, Reynolds Pamphlet, 1797
Announcer: That was a little out of left field, Mr. Hamilton. Gentlemen, the time is nearly up. Do you agree with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798? Please keep it brief.
“That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled “An Act in addition to the act entitled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,” as also the act passed by them on the day of June, 1798, entitled “An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States,” (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution), are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.” Jefferson's draft of the 1798 Kentucky Resolution
“…I like very well the course of Executive Conduct in regard to the Controversy with France, and I like the answer of the Senate to the Presidents speech…
…Last session, I sent Sedgwick, with request to communicate it to you, my project of a building tax. Inclosed is the rough Sketch…” Letter from Alexander Hamilton to Oliver Wolcott, Junior, June 6, 1797
“What, My Dear Sir, are you going to do with Virginia? This is a very serious business, which will call for all the wisdom and firmness of the Government. The following are the ideas which occur to me on the occasion.
The first thing in all great operations of such a Government as ours is to secure the opinion of the people. To this end, the proceedings of Virginia and Kentucke1 with the two laws complained of should be referred to a special Committee. That Committee should make a report exhibiting with great luminousness and particularity the reasons which support the constitutionality and expediency of those laws—the tendency of the doctrines advanced by Virginia and Kentucke to destroy the Constitution of the UStates—and, with calm dignity united with pathos, the full evidence which they afford of a regular conspiracy to overturn the government. And the Report should likewise dwell upon the inevitable effect and probably the intention of these proceedings to encourage a hostile foreign power to decline accommodation and proceed in hostility...”
…This Report should conclude with a declaration that there is no cause for a Repeal of the laws…..In the mean time the measures for raising the Military force should proceed with activity. Tis much to be lamented that so much delay has attended the execution of this measure. In times like the present not a moment ought to have been lost to secure the Government so powerful an auxiliary. Whenever the experiment shall be made to subdue a refractory & powerful state by Militia, the event will shame the advocates of their sufficiency. In the expedition against the Western Insurgents I trembled every moment lest a great part of the Militia should take it into their heads to return home rather than go forward…Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, 2 February 1799
“We live, without question, in Hamilton’s America,” says Stephen F. Knott, professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College and co-author of “Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America.”
"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr.” Alexander Hamilton