# SDMB Retrospective US Presidential Elections 1796 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 30, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109 "2014-01-30T05:12:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/21 "2014-02-01T03:28:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Becaus the D-Rs are nutjobs. Because I know Hamilton’s vision for America is better than Jefferson’s. ## Hamilton wanted to give plutocrats lifetime appointments to the Senate. One facet of his famous fiscal system was to restrict credit to the “right sort” in a deliberate effort to increase wealth inequality so that the elite could live a lavish lifestyle to inspire deference from their social inferiors. Neither Jefferson or Hamilton had a vision for America that I would endorse but then it’s hardly fair to criticize premoderns for failing to predict the complexity of the modern world. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > That’s an interesting theory,but it’s a bit of a stretch to claim the embargo is proof Jefferson didn’t u understand trade. He didn’t enforce the embargo to help the economy, he enforced the embargo as an act of economic warfare. You could say Jefferson didn’t understand how to handle the crisis, but to say he didn’t understand trade is repeating a common misconception that he was economically backward. Jefferson created the crisis. The fact that he thought an embargo might work in the first place indicates his lack of understanding of the situation. > [@](#): > > In fact he was at the forefront of advancing capitalist thought in the US. This sounds interesting. Care to elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/22 "2014-02-01T06:05:29Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Hamilton wanted to give plutocrats lifetime appointments to the Senate. [More or less true.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_(United_States)#Hamilton.27s_Plan) > [@2sense](#): > > One facet of his famous fiscal system was to restrict credit to the “right sort” in a deliberate effort to increase wealth inequality so that the elite could live a lavish lifestyle to inspire deference from their social inferiors. Not hard to believe, but, cite? In any case, I give him credit for what I mentioned in post #18. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/23 "2014-02-01T20:57:25Z")
The argument is from Andrew Shankman _Crucible of American Democracy_ beginning on page 208. Gordon Wood does not discuss this social motive for restricting credit but see _Empire of Liberty_ page 99: > [@](#): > > In spite of opposition from Hamilton and the Band of the United States, these farmers and entrepreneurs soon pressured their states to create state banks, many of them, that eventually gave them the credit they wanted. Hamilton’s insensitivity to the entrepreneurial needs of these ordinary farmers and small businessmen suggests how little he and other Federalists appreciated the real sources of the capitalist future of America. What we need to remember is that premoderns lived in a very different intellectual world than we are used to so we need to be wary of applying modern generalizations. While I think the concept of “presentism” is little more than insecurity masquerading as wisdom it is true that if you don’t understand historical figures in context then you don’t really understand them at all. In some ways Hamilton was visionary but in others we could be as hidebound as any. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/24 "2014-02-02T04:01:09Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > What we need to remember is that premoderns lived in a very different intellectual world than we are used to so we need to be wary of applying modern generalizations. While I think the concept of “presentism” is little more than insecurity masquerading as wisdom it is true that if you don’t understand historical figures in context then you don’t really understand them at all. In some ways Hamilton was visionary but in others we could be as hidebound as any. All of that is true, but, if we Americans now, in hindsight, taking into account all factors present at that time and subsequent to it, have to make a retrospective choice between Jefferson (as represented by himself) and his elitist-democratic-populist-agrarian vision for America, and Hamilton (as represented by Adams) and his elitist-industrial-scientific-financial-capitalist vision for America, with all the benefit of what we know now, then Hamilton is the obviously and inescapably better choice. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/25 "2014-02-02T07:28:25Z")
There are a lot of years between then and now and to the people that lived them they felt just as important as ours do. I’d argue that the election of Jefferson and a Republican ticket would clearly benefit a lot of lower income white families right away (though possible effects on black families in the gradually abolishing North is disquieting) particularly if they could then avoid the federal government’s greatest cock-block ever: the Embargo of 1807. I would, that is, except that’s going to be my argument for the Revolution of 1800 in the next thread. 🆒 I will say that as an individual (rather than a set of ideals) Adams was a much better president than Hamilton could have been. He had learned the patience that Hamilton didn’t live long enough to acquire. Hamilton was eager for war and not just with France or necessarily with foreign nations. Have you read Chernow’s book? He’s selling you Hamilton, like biographers do, but has interesting things to say about Alexander’s military ambitions. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/26 "2014-02-03T01:40:49Z")
After reading the pros and cons of the two majors, was anybody else running? I’m liking George Clinton because I like his music and Sam Adams because I like his beer, but I’m more Federalist at heart. I guess that leaves me with Jay, because “John Jay all the way!” rhymes. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/27 "2014-02-03T16:12:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Certainly not; he was an agrarian. [His archrival Hamilton was the industrialist.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#Manufacturing_and_industry) See his [_Report on Manufactures_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_on_Manufactures) and his [Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Establishing_Useful_Manufactures). **He** was at the forefront. That would place Hamilton at the forefront of mercantilism, not capitalism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/28 "2014-02-03T16:49:50Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > That would place Hamilton at the forefront of mercantilism, not capitalism. No, it would place him at the forefront of **industrial** capitalism, which Jefferson was always against on principle. Look, if you want the Straight Dope on American political-economic history, read [_Land of Promise_](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/land-of-promise-by-michael-lind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) by Michael Lind. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/29 "2014-02-03T17:03:59Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > It’s a real quote…it’s a letter from him to John Taylor, from May 28, 1816, expressing his agreement with Taylor’s book: > > [To John Taylor Monticello May 28, 1816 \< The Letters of Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 \< Thomas Jefferson \< Presidents \< American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyond](http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl245.php) > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Let me add, here’s Taylor’s book, which Jefferson was responding to: > > [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com\_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1308&layout=html](http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1308&layout=html) That’s all well and good. Do you have any cites from Taylor’s book that backs up the claim made in Brainglutton’s quote: > [@](#): > > Taylor’s theory was an early version of what was to become known as the ‘physical fallacy,’ a belief that only those who worked with their hands and brains to raise food or make goods were creating ‘real’ wealth and that all other forms of economic activity were essentially parasitical For example, Jefferson was against bank paper, but I don’t think he was against investment of saved capital. John Adams was of a similar view on banking. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/30 "2014-02-03T17:12:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, it would place him at the forefront of **industrial** capitalism, which Jefferson was always against on principle. > > Look, if you want the Straight Dope on American political-economic history, read [_Land of Promise_](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/land-of-promise-by-michael-lind.html?=all&_r=0) by Michael Lind. You can call it what you want, I guess. But the policies of Hamiton were merely practical political maneuverings, not advanced capitalist thought along the lines of Jefferson acquaintances like de Tracy and Jean Baptiste Say. Lind, a historian not an economist, prefers a good yarn to economic brass tacks. Hamilton was a forerunner of Henry Clay state directed cronyism. Laissez-faire capitalism was the advanced theory of the time. Hamilton was a student of British style Mercantilism. His ideas were old. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/31 "2014-02-03T17:20:21Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > You can call it what you want, I guess. But the policies of Hamiton were merely practical political maneuverings, not advanced capitalist thought along the lines of Jefferson acquaintances like de Tracy and Jean Baptiste Say. So, Jefferson read economists? No doubt Hamilton read economists too. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Lind, a historian not an economist, prefers a good yarn to economic brass tacks. Hamilton was a forerunner of Henry Clay state directed cronyism. Laissez-faire capitalism was the advanced theory of the time. Hamilton was a student of British style Mercantilism. His ideas were old. It goes way **beyond** that. The relevant divide between Jefferson and Hamilton is not between _laissez-faire_ and _dirigisme,_ it is between agriculture and industry, and between smallness and bigness. > [@](#): > > Whatever their political party, American leaders have generally subscribed to one of two competing economic philosophies. One is a small-government Jeffersonian perspective that abhors bigness and holds that prosperity flows from competition among independent businessmen, farmers and other producers. The other is a Hamiltonian agenda that believes a large, powerful country needs large, powerful organizations. The most important of those organizations is the federal government, which serves as a crucial partner to private enterprise, building roads and schools, guaranteeing loans and financing scientific research in ways that individual businesses would not. > > Today, of course, Republicans are the Jeffersonians and Democrats are the Hamiltonians. But it hasn’t always been so. The Jeffersonian line includes Andrew Jackson, the leaders of the Confederacy, William Jennings Bryan, Louis Brandeis, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The Hamiltonian line includes George Washington, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, both Roosevelts and Dwight Eisenhower. > > Michael Lind’s “Land of Promise” uses this divide to offer an ambitious economic history of the United States. The book is rich with details, more than a few of them surprising, and its subject is central to what is arguably the single most important question facing the country today: How can our economy grow more quickly, more sustainably and more equitably than it has been growing, both to maintain the United States’ position as the world’s pre-eminent power and to improve the lives of its citizens? > > Lind, a founder of the New America Foundation in Washington and the author of several political histories, acknowledges from the beginning that his thesis will make some readers uncomfortable. “In the spirit of philosophical bipartisanship, it would be pleasant to conclude that each of these traditions of political economy has made its own valuable contribution to the success of the American economy and that the vector created by these opposing forces has been more beneficial than the complete victory of either would have been,” he writes. > > “But that would not be true,” he continues. “What is good about the American economy is largely the result of the Hamiltonian developmental tradition, and what is bad about it is largely the result of the Jeffersonian producerist school.” > > Hamiltonian development built the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad, the land-grant universities and the Interstate highway system. In the process, the United States became a giant, interconnected market, a place where companies like Standard Oil, General Motors, John Deere and Sears Roebuck could thrive. The government — and the American military in particular — also played the most important role in financing innovation at its early stages. The industries that produced the jet engine, the radio (and, by extension, the television), radar, penicillin, synthetic rubber and semiconductors all stemmed from government-financed research or procurement. The Defense Department literally built the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/32 "2014-02-03T17:29:36Z")
Jefferson’s vision was a nation of yeoman farmers. Thank Og we’re **not** that any more. And [producerism](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Producerism) in the political sense has an unreservedly dismal history. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/33 "2014-02-03T17:46:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So, Jefferson read economists? No doubt Hamilton read economists too. Which ones? Did he have them published? Advocate the use of their texts in university? Develop correspondence with them? Most relevantly, of the economists supposedly read by Hamiton, are they even known today? Did they contribute to the advancement of economic thought. Hamilton was a shrewd political operator, no doubt. His ideas were eventually triumphant, and a state-subsidized elite has materialized as was his goal. His ideas led to our ability to create an incredible war machine as Lind evidently celebrates. That doesn’t mean that he was right. That’s like saying the robber who bops you on your head and takes your money is right because he now has your money. > [@](#): > > It goes way **beyond** that. The relevant divide between Jefferson and Hamilton is not between _laissez-faire_ and _dirigisme,_ it is between agriculture and industry, and between smallness and bigness. It doesn’t need to go beyond that. Laissez-faire allows for industry as well as agriculture. Laissez-faire allows for big as well as small (Some misguided critics will claim big is an inevitable consequence of laissez-faire). ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/34 "2014-02-03T17:48:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Jefferson’s vision was a nation of yeoman farmers. Thank Og we’re **not** that any more. > > And [producerism](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Producerism) in the political sense has an unreservedly dismal history. You can’t even envision a world in which one man’s vision decides the fate of a nation. If you could you would actually understand the better aspects of Jefferson. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/35 "2014-02-03T17:49:10Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Hamilton was a shrewd political operator, no doubt. His ideas were eventually triumphant, and a state-subsidized elite has materialized as was his goal. His ideas led to our ability to create an incredible war machine as Lind evidently celebrates. That doesn’t mean that he was right. That’s like saying the robber who bops you on your head and takes your money is right because he now has your money. **Of course** it means he was right; his policies made America and its people richer and stronger. What more can we ask of politicians?! > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It doesn’t need to go beyond that. Laissez-faire allows for industry as well as agriculture. Laissez-faire allows for big as well as small (Some misguided critics will claim big is an inevitable consequence of laissez-faire). Ooh, Jefferson wouldn’t like **that!** ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/36 "2014-02-03T17:51:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What are you talking about? I **posted** a quote **of Jefferson’s** expressing hostility to the very existence of banks. No he expresses hostility to a “banking establishment”. That’s actually a valid hostility. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/37 "2014-02-03T17:55:13Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Laissez-faire capitalism was the advanced theory of the time. But now we have the benefit of hindsight, and we know that _laissez-faire_ is **not** all that great, and that Keynes was a better economist than any of libertarian school. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/38 "2014-02-03T17:57:34Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No he expresses hostility to a “banking establishment”. That’s actually a valid hostility. How does a “banking establishment” differ from “banks”? If you’re thinking of small banks v. big ones, banking is one industry where bigger is always better. As Lind relates, there was a long time in American history when banks were not even allowed to operate in more than one state. That was always a bad idea; it’s inefficient. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/39 "2014-02-03T18:02:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Of course** it means he was right; his policies made America and its people richer and stronger. What more can we ask of politicians?! From your own cite: > [@](#): > > For all its logical rigor, however, the book’s thesis does suffer from one basic flaw. Lind never quite explains how the United States has ended up as the richest large country in the world, with per capita income about 20 percent higher than Sweden’s or Canada’s, almost 30 percent higher than Germany’s and almost 500 percent higher than China’s. If anything, other countries have pursued more Hamiltonian policies in many ways than the United States, without quite the same success. So basically Lind doesn’t even address the standard objection. Quite useless. The two periods of the most robust growth in American history were in the 19th century. Everyone from Karl Marx to Milton Friedman would agree the US was comparatively laissez faire during these periods. Lind says because of the subsidized intercontinental railroads (which all went bankrupt before 1900, the only totally private one survived) these periods occurred. Also, thanks to fractional reserve banking, Hamilton’s sweetheart, we have a slew of panics that mark an otherwise impressive century. Lind loves a good yarn. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/40 "2014-02-03T18:40:28Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The two periods of the most robust growth in American history were in the 19th century. Growth was rather more robust in the 20th, particularly after the New Deal. Which also allowed the working class to become substantially middle-class for the first time ever in human history. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Also, thanks to fractional reserve banking, Hamilton’s sweetheart . . . Industrial capitalism would be impossible without fractional-reserve banking, which is to say, simply, banking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109.md?page=3)