What If? v.PresidentHamilton

[Publius]

It's sometimes fun to play the "what if" game with politics, so I figured I'd do one here... When the Constitution was written there was very specific language regarding who was allowed to be President:

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

I underlined the part that has been commonly cited by historians as a direct reference to Alexander Hamilton's foreign birth, anticipating that he would one day desire to seek the Presidency and thus allowing him the ability to do so.

Leaving aside all argument over whether or not he would have actually run and won, let's assume hypothetically that rather than being killed by Aaron Burr in 1804 Hamilton had instead never engaged in the duel and run for President shortly thereafter, winning the election.

How do you think a Hamilton presidency would've shaped our nation? For argument's sake in order to have a context regarding the national climate at the time, let's assume Hamilton won the 1808 election rather than Madison.

For one, I don't think the U.S. would've gone to war with Britain in 1812. The shock waves of that act alone would completely change the landscape of American history: Jackson would likely never have become President, the Star Spangled Banner would never have been written, etc.

What else do you think would have happened during a Hamilton presidency that would change the way our nation is today?

[lew]

I think that Lincoln's mercantilism would have happened much sooner under Hamilton and that our country would be in even worse shape today than it already is.

I know you guys like Hamilton and all, but c'mon, he was a mercantilist for God's sake

[lew]

Not to say Hamilton wasn't a brilliant Founding Father. He was.


But he was far too Statist for my tastes.

[Publius]

Originally Posted by lew

I think that Lincoln's mercantilism would have happened much sooner under Hamilton and that our country would be in even worse shape today than it already is.

I know you guys like Hamilton and all, but c'mon, he was a mercantilist for God's sake

I disagree with your assessment that Hamilton was a mercantilist. I suggest reading the book Financial Founding Fathers by Robert Wright. It explains a lot about the nature of the early U.S. economy and why someone like Hamilton was very important in creating the nation's future prosperity.

There is a chapter on Jackson as well, and as much as I dislike a lot of what Jackson stood for the author makes a very convincing argument related to one of Jackson's assertions; namely that if Hamilton had lived 30-40 years later than he did, he would see that a National Bank and many of the other policies he espoused at the Founding were no longer a necessity.

It's an argument which makes sense: Hamilton very much wanted to tie together the various states as intimately as possible after the clusterfuck of the Confederation, and the quickest way to do that was a central bank to unify the various state economies. However within 15 to 20 years of the Bank's creation, the state economies had indeed become so well unified that the Bank was no longer necessary. Yes the various state economies may eventually have melded, but the National Bank Hamilton created was an expedient to move along the nation's unification.

While that may seem "statist" to you, I offer that at a time when there was no guarantee the Union would last beyond a few years after the Constitution was born it was a necessary expedient to bring together the various states as a unified nation in the face of foreign countries.

Much like the Federal government's assumption of individual state debts, at that point in time a U.S. central bank offered a unified front that made America more credit-worthy as a nation and thus more able to sustain itself. Prior to Hamilton's bank, for example, there were several INDIVIDUALS in the nation that could borrow on credit more easily and at more favorable interest rates than the Federal Government could.

By the late 1820s and into the 1830s, the nation's capital and credit had been built up to a point, in large part thanks to the financial system Hamilton put into place, that those systems created by Hamilton at the outset were no longer as important to the nation's economic well-being, because the nascent market's wheels had been "greased" by those systems.

[Ardentfrost]

You make a convincing argument Pub...

But I've never felt right about Hamilton in my gut

He maintained a standing army during Adams' presidency for goodness sake. That undermining of the federal government could have easily become detrimental to the union. Thank God Adams had the good sense to disband the army from under Hamilton.

He's like Jefferson... he spoke out of both sides of his mouth. If you're right about his true intentions with the national bank, I can forgive him of that indiscretion... but it still feels wrong