# 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:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/41 "2014-02-04T22:38:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Industrial capitalism would be impossible without fractional-reserve banking, which is to say, simply, banking. If you think different, go to [this GD thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=714921). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/42 "2014-02-05T00:50:49Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > 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. I don’t know who he corresponded with, but I know he read both Adam Smith and David Hume, who are still known today, He also read Malachy Postlethwayt’s “Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce”, which is less known today, but was enormously influential at the time, and who’s ideas were influential in the administrations of Walpole and Lord Rockingham (Postlethwayt’s advice was the main reason the Rockingham government repealed the Stamp Tax.) Hamilton’s biggest influence though, economically, was probably Jaques Necker, Louis XVI’s finance minister, whose advice to reform the French system of taxation and expenditure and decrease state spending Louis disregarded. I do have to say, reading the debate thus far, that I think both you and **Brainglutton** are being unfair. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were extraordinarily intelligent and educated men, who had read extensively on matters of government and economy, and both well in tune with the economic thinking of the time. I understand partisanship exists, but it seems wrong to dismiss either one as a crank, as foolish, or as venal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/43 "2014-02-05T00:58:28Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I do have to say, reading the debate thus far, that I think both you and **Brainglutton** are being unfair. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were extraordinarily intelligent and educated men, who had read extensively on matters of government and economy, and both well in tune with the economic thinking of the time. I understand partisanship exists, but it seems wrong to dismiss either one as a crank, as foolish, or as venal. I guess we’re not so much debating about the relative values of the two men, as about the relative values of the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian traditions in American political economy. And practically **any** thinking person of the 18th Century will appear a crank in some respects to modern minds. > [@Benjamin Franklin](#): > > Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. > > 1. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind. Wotta crank! ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/44 "2014-02-05T03:13:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I guess we’re not so much debating about the relative values of the two men, as about the relative values of the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian traditions in American political economy. > > And practically **any** thinking person of the 18th Century will appear a crank in some respects to modern minds. > > Wotta crank! I wonder if that was a satire considering its pretty absurd to call Swedes and Germans “swarthy” while English are not. Plus the reference to Martians and Venerians. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/45 "2014-02-05T03:36:53Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I wonder if that was a satire considering its pretty absurd to call Swedes and Germans “swarthy” while English are not. Plus the reference to Martians and Venerians. I really don’t think it was, since it’s connected to his hostility to German immigration, which is not satire but his actual policy, or at least I’ve never read otherwise. [Also:](http://racehist.blogspot.com/2008/01/benjamin-franklin-and-white-and-red.html) > [@](#): > > On a related note, people are sometimes puzzled that Franklin counts Swedes among the “swarthy”-complected. Bear in mind that the most of the “Swedes” who settled the Delaware valley evidently were, in fact, Finns, and their descendants may be the “Swedes” Franklin refers to. While we don’t usually think of Finns as swarthy, according to Coon: > > > [@](#): > > > > The pigmentation of the Finns is as abundantly documented as are their stature and head form. Skin color, however, has been tabulated in only one study of 154 males, of whom 121 were found to be “white,” presumably in the extreme Scandinavian sense, **while the others were listed as “yellowish” or “brunet.”** General observation of Finns, however, and descriptions by various authors, lead to the conclusion that **the skin color of these people is as a rule unusually fair, but that in many cases it lacks surface vascularity.** > > **Update:** Franklin, writing in France: > > > [@](#): > > > > On the road yesterday we met six or seven country women in company, on horseback and astride; they were all of **fair white and red complexions,** but one among them was the fairest woman I ever beheld. Most of the men have good complexions, not swarthy, like those of the North of France in which I remember that, except about Abbeville, i saw few fair people. So, it was something to which he paid attention. I’m not sure what “surface vascularity” means, though. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109/46 "2014-02-06T07:12:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’m not sure what “surface vascularity” means, though. Pink. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1796/680109.md?page=2)