Reply #7: Depends ... [View All]

(I anticipate a lot of subjects starting with "depends" in this forum)

As another respondent asked, when is he President? Who does he replace?

I don't have the harsh view of Hamilton that some in this forum seem to have. He's not one of my favorite historical characters, but we must consider that his ideological opposites were largely upper-class slave-owners who opposed him primarily for reasons related to their own economic and social self-interests. As a consequence, much of the negative contemporary rhetoric directed toward him is tainted by somewhat hypocritical notions.

I could go off on many tangents, one being that the Federalists did not really die. They only changed forms and emerged as the core base of the Whig Party which in turn formed the politically viable core of the Republican party. Recall that Lincoln was a self-described Clay Whig who described his own political principles in largely Federalist terms.

Another tangent could lead down the road of the political and legal battle between Jefferson and Marshall, the latter being at one time a Hamiltonian Federalist. Marshall defined a great deal of what we, as progressives, now take as legal gospel. Furthermore, the modern Republican party, removed as it is from its origins, has thrust itself enitrely in the opposite direction with its opposition to Marbury v Madison, the "activist" Federalist decision that defined the duties of the US Supreme Court, per Marshall.

In short, I don't know. I don't think Hamilton himself as President would have had that great of an effect on the course of this country because a great deal of the Federalist principles he espoused took root anyway. Had he happened to replace Jefferson, several things might have been different, but not necessarily in the ways one might think. Focused as he was on finances, he may well have ignored the prospect of acquiring the so-called Louisiana Purchase, which, at the time, didn't seem like a particularly good deal given all the problems with the territory. That might have avoided the Civil War, which in turn could have avoided many of the progressive advancements in social and racial relations.

Things would have been somewhat different, but how different is simply a guess. Comparison of Hamilton to modern Republican elitists are, I think off the mark.