• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Your thoughts on Alexander Hamilton?

It's really too bad Burr didn't taken out Jefferson too.
 
Mithrae said:
Others seem to think that the 14th and 16th amendments were pretty terrible 'power grabs' too. One might be forgiven for envisaging a stereotypical conservative believing that your Founders and your Constitution were a pinnacle of human civilization... so perfect that their system somehow went downhill all the way :doh
Click to expand...

the system has gone down hill. the federal government continues to grab power that it shouldn't be allowed to have.
the federal government continues to attempt to micromanage our daily lives.

that was not the intended scope of the constitution in fact that was the exact opposite of the federal government.
that is why the first 10 amendments exist to limit the power of government.

they say everything that the government CAN'T do. somewhere along the way we have lost those.
you want to change an amendment there is a process. until then it stays as written.

Good for Thomas Jefferson his opinion is noted. doesn't mean it is correct.
 
JC Callender said:
What do you like about him? And do you think he would be pleased with how our federal government has turned out so far?
Click to expand...

I think he was completely right on the need to have a strong central government, I think his conception of American Empire was prescient, his views on the necessity of debt and the development of the country away from a nation of yeoman farmers into a modern commercial state, the need for a professional and well funded standing military, etc. I could go on and on really. He's the most 'modern' of the founding fathers and the one who's views ultimately triumphed more than any others---and for good reason.
 
Mr Person said:
Well, I already posted at length in a thread on most influential Americans, but I cannot recall where it was.

I'll say that based on Ron Chernow's biography, Hamilton was easily one of the most influential Americans.
Click to expand...
Based on that book, Hamilton was the brains behind the whole operation,along with Madison.
He was one of those 200 IQers who apparently was not such a great people person.
 
Mithrae said:
Others seem to think that the 14th and 16th amendments were pretty terrible 'power grabs' too. One might be forgiven for envisaging a stereotypical conservative believing that your Founders and your Constitution were a pinnacle of human civilization... so perfect that their system somehow went downhill all the way :doh

Some comments made by Thomas Jefferson seem a more reasonable counterpoint to such views:
"I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our particular security is in possession of a written constitution.... Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time and trial show are still wanting."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803


"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading, and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead.

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816


"But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another and all others in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will. The dead are not even things. . . .

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824​
Click to expand...

this has no bearing on what ludin said.

if you wish to get into a founders duel over quotes, please do.
 
Mithrae said:
Others seem to think that the 14th and 16th amendments were pretty terrible 'power grabs' too. One might be forgiven for envisaging a stereotypical conservative believing that your Founders and your Constitution were a pinnacle of human civilization... so perfect that their system somehow went downhill all the way :doh

Some comments made by Thomas Jefferson seem a more reasonable counterpoint to such views:
"I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our particular security is in possession of a written constitution.... Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding, by way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time and trial show are still wanting."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, September 7, 1803


"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country... As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816


"But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another and all others in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will. The dead are not even things. . . .

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824​
Click to expand...
Seems then this should be posted to the threads which are concerned with 14 & 16th power grabs where your sentiments would be challenged.

Be that as it may, Jefferson is not the object of this OP either... but one can easily find different perspective and questions where you are trying to interpret Jefferson to fit the more liberal/progressive model. The first quote, where it is found necessary. Where the government has gotten involved, in many instances, is in too many areas, none of which are necessities. Its just like big banks and being too big to allow to fail, nope. Should never get that big, should allow true competition. The government is too large and interfering for freedom to most beneficially occur.

Have no problem whatsoever with the second passage understanding that you also do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our founders here were exceptitonally talented, maybe even a bit lucky hitting such right combinations, but they paired knowledge of politics, history, and logic with a deep understanding of man's real nature, our human nature. And they designed a government that, with a limited framework, could bring us to the pinnacle of human history. And because we are lesser and, possibly not as blessed by fate currently, we have made bad choices about what to keep and enlarge and by so doing have put the balance, so cleverly put in place by the founders, out of kilter and now its spinning, wobbling like a top that has lost its momentum. The center of the top shold stay in the same place, just whirling in all directions as that momentum spreads out to all other parts of the top, evenly. That and our ancestors were not, relatively, barbarous and so grains of salt are necessarily taken here.

I would say on the third, again, agreement based on being able to see through the blindness. If we stop following the original idea and make, as a generation, a bunch of stupid mistakes, why should we be forever saddled with those stupid mistakes? Those accounted for as inalienable rights are our 1st Amendment rights and freedoms.
 
KLATTU said:
Based on that book, Hamilton was the brains behind the whole operation,along with Madison.
He was one of those 200 IQers who apparently was not such a great people person.
Click to expand...

They were truly exceptional specimens of homo sapien
 
Master PO said:
this has no bearing on what ludin said.

if you wish to get into a founders duel over quotes, please do.
Click to expand...

Gotta be quite brief while posting at work, but it directly addresses Ludin's complaints about "hijacking" the constitution, a government "power grab" and the subsequent "downfall": Those are opinions which obviously have not been widely shared by the generations which have come and gone since. Within the framework of fundamental liberties and representation, the proper role of government is determined by those who are governed - not people from 200 years ago who, even if they were still alive, would be a tiny fraction of the population and wildly out of touch with the structure and needs of modern society. A fact which some folk from 200 years ago recognised.

None of which is to say that more recent folk have always taken the most beneficial route, of course.
 
Mithrae said:
Gotta be quite brief while posting at work, but it directly addresses Ludin's complaints about "hijacking" the constitution, a government "power grab" and the subsequent "downfall": Those are opinions which obviously have not been widely shared by the generations which have come and gone since. Within the framework of fundamental liberties and representation, the proper role of government is determined by those who are governed - not people from 200 years ago who, even if they were still alive, would be a tiny fraction of the population and wildly out of touch with the structure and needs of modern society. A fact which some folk from 200 years ago recognised.

None of which is to say that more recent folk have always taken the most beneficial route, of course.
Click to expand...


he was talking about the USSC case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) where the USSC handed the federal government power to regulate commerce inside of states and the people, which they could not do before, and both madsion and hamilton state the federal government has no power to do.

by this court action, it allowed the federal government to get involved in our lives liberty and property, which they were never meant to be.
 
Probably the best and most future thinking of our founders. Helped get the country onto sound financial footing, wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, both defending the Constitution and presenting many interpretations that are used today. He is also the author of my favorite and most accurate quote about the Constitution:

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
Click to expand...
 
Master PO said:
he was talking about the USSC case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) where the USSC handed the federal government power to regulate commerce inside of states and the people, which they could not do before, and both madsion and hamilton state the federal government has no power to do.

by this court action, it allowed the federal government to get involved in our lives liberty and property, which they were never meant to be.
Click to expand...

Fair enough - I've learned a thing or three from googling that :) - but it doesn't change my point. This seems to have been legislation or a detail of federal power which the legislative branch (obviously), executive and eventually judicial branches all accepted, and which has not been overturned in seven decades since (nor entirely without precedent, for that matter). Whether or not the original authors of the constitution specifically meant for it to be used that way, and whether or not particular individuals in the years since consider it a 'hijacking' or stretched interpretation of it, it all seems to have been above board and following the normal processes, and acceptable or at least not too odious to most citizens of several subsequent generations.
 
Mithrae said:
Fair enough - I've learned a thing or three from googling that :) - but it doesn't change my point. This seems to have been legislation or a detail of federal power which the legislative branch (obviously), executive and eventually judicial branches all accepted, and which has not been overturned in seven decades since (nor entirely without precedent, for that matter). Whether or not the original authors of the constitution specifically meant for it to be used that way, and whether or not particular individuals in the years since consider it a 'hijacking' or stretched interpretation of it, it all seems to have been above board and following the normal processes, and acceptable or at least not too odious to most citizens of several subsequent generations.
Click to expand...


even though it when through the process two men who were at thew constitutional say the federal government cannot regulate the people, ..yet the government is doing it

so government can regulate the people now, because a man grew extra wheat to feed to his cattle:doh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom