Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution - And What It Means for Americans Today

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Overview

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton--two of the most influential Founding Fathers--were also fierce rivals with two opposing political philosophies and two radically different visions for America.

While Jefferson is better remembered today, it is actually Hamilton's political legacy that has triumphed--a legacy that has subverted the Constitution and transformed the federal government into the very leviathan state that our forefathers fought against in the American Revolution. How did we go from the Jeffersonian ideal of limited government to the bloated imperialist system of Hamilton's design? Acclaimed economic historian, Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals how Hamilton, first as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and later as the nation's first and most influential treasury secretary, masterfully promoted an agenda of nationalist glory and interventionist economics. These core beliefs did not die with Hamilton in his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, but were carried on through his political heirs.

The Hamiltonian legacy wrested control into the hands of the federal government by inventing the myth of the Constitution's "implied powers, transforming state governments from Jeffersonian bulwarks of liberty to beggars for federal crumbs. It also devised a national banking system that imposes boom-and-bust cycles on the American economy; saddled Americans with a massive national debt and oppressive taxation, and pushed economic policies that lined the pockets of the wealthy and created a government system built on graft, spoils, and patronage.

By debunking the Hamiltonian myths, DiLorenzo exposes an uncomfortable truth: the American people are no longer the masters of their government but its servants. Only by restoring a system based on Jeffersonian ideals can Hamilton's curse be lifted, at last.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307382856
Publisher:	The Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/08/2009
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	935,935
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

THOMAS J. DILORENZO is the author of The Real Lincoln and How Capitalism Saved America. A professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, Reader's Digest, Barron's, and many other publications. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Real Hamilton 1

Chapter 1 The Rousseau of the Right 9

Chapter 2 Public Blessing or National Curse? 38

Chapter 3 Hamilton's Bank Job 58

Chapter 4 Hamilton's Disciple: How John Marshall Subverted the Constitution 78

Chapter 5 The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism 99

Chapter 6 Hamiltonian Hegemony 123

Chapter 7 The Hamiltonian Revolution of 1913 150

Chapter 8 The Poisoned Fruits of "Hamilton's Republic" 171

Conclusion: Ending the Curse 196

Notes 211

Acknowledgments 233

Index 235

Editorial Reviews

Recent scholarship has lauded Alexander Hamilton as one of the most important and influential of the Founding Fathers. DiLorenzo (economics, Loyola Coll.; Lincoln Unmasked) sets out to challenge this assumption in a revisionist examination of Hamilton's political and economic ideas. Writing from the perspective of a Jeffersonian, DiLorenzo makes the case that Hamiltonian concepts have been directly responsible for such perceived ills as a big, corrupt, unwieldy federal government; the boom-bust economic cycle; overtaxation; national debt; American hegemony; and an incestuous relationship between big business and big government. Specifically, he blames the Hamiltonian philosophies of a strong central government, a state-run bank, protectionist trade policies, government-subsidized industries, and centralized economic planning. DiLorenzo argues that these policies are in direct opposition to the intent of the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution, which sought to limit the control of a central government in favor of personal liberties and states' rights. Controversial and provocative; recommended to public and undergraduate libraries for its alternative view of Hamilton from the image in popular biographies such as Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton.
—Robert Flatley

Library Journal