Jefferson vs. Hamilton: Who Really Understood America? | Ultimate Issue Hour

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On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

All right, so was I correct in saying to begin with that Jefferson and Hamilton despised each other both personally and philosophically?

I think you were pretty much right on, on target. They, they had a bitter relationship. Both of them claimed that they were only rivals politically, but I think it went deeper than that. I think you were right on target.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to Dennis Prager.

Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here. We've been getting terrific feedback concerning these periodic Hours that I devote to history, because you know my belief: if you know history, you can begin to understand the present. Or to put it in the negative, if you don't know history, you can't understand the present. And I'll be a little aggressive here: I don't understand not wanting to know history. I don't get it. I understand where people like me are not thrilled with mathematics, for example. Although I did have a professor of mathematics from Berkeley on the show, because I want to fall in love with math too. Why not? If it's out there, I'd like to love it. But history should be self-recommending. This is what happened. And especially, though not only, American history. We are Americans. What happened? How did we get formed? It would seem to me to be a burning question. I certainly have it. And so I am delighted to welcome today Professor John Ferling, F-E-R-L-I-N-G. He's a professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia. And his book— and what we try to do is feature brand new books on history. There are magnificent books written 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but I'm trying to give the brand new authors, or the brand new books, I should say, of their time in the sun. He has written this book, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. 2 of the founders of this country hated each other. It's as simple as that. It's not only that, but that is the case, not, not only personally, but philosophically. And that's what this book is about. And it is, of course, up at dennisprager.com. Jefferson and Hamilton: So, Professor John Ferling, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.

Well, thank you for having me.

It's a delight, sir. Just a word, I— you know what I love? I love when universities that we're not all familiar with produce works like your book and so on. I have found in the course of my broadcast career that unlike when I was at college where you had a handful of colleges that you expected to— or universities that you expected to produce the scholars of the country. Today that is no longer the case. So I'm not surprised that someone of your caliber is at a university we're not all familiar with, University of West Georgia. If you'd like to comment on that, that's fine, and if not, we'll just go to the book.

Well, no, I think that's true. I think it's been a matter of the job market Over the last 40 years or so has been such that people have wound up at schools, smaller schools all around the country, and those who wanted to be productive were able to be productive. The schools oftentimes did what they could to facilitate their productivity. So I think all around the country you find people producing, obviously at Harvard and Yale, but you find— good scholars, good historians, good political scientists, and whatever, at state colleges and small private schools all around the country.

Yeah.

It is a different world.

Yeah, it is, and that's a healthy— that's a much healthier thing.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, I have big problems with universities on other issues, but the level of scholarship that we have today is very high. And it doesn't matter where they are. And you're a living example of that. How many years were you at the University of West Virginia?

Uh, at West Georgia?

I'm sorry. Yeah, well, you know what? You know what kills me? Because I am sure a lot of people do that, and I hate making the same mistake everybody does.

Well, that's right. I attended West Virginia.

Oh, then it must drive you nuts. I'm sorry.

I root for the Mountaineers in football, but I taught at the University of West Georgia for 33 years.

Wow.

Where is it located?

It's out in the western exurbs of Atlanta, in a town named Carrollton. It was founded when the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and they established the county in the late 1820s and named the county for him and the town for him.

OK. I gotcha. Yeah. All right, so was I correct in saying to begin with that Jefferson and Hamilton despised each other both personally and philosophically?

I think you were pretty much right on target. They had a bitter relationship. Both of them claimed that they were only rivals politically, but I think it went deeper than that. I think you were right on target.

Now, in a nutshell, and then we'll certainly obviously make that bigger than a nutshell because that's what your book is about, what did they represent each? What did each represent philosophically?

Well, Jefferson was in favor of a small, unobtrusive government. He wanted to Uh, maintain, uh, the agrarian nature of the economy. I think he had visions of it taking 200 or 300 years to advance from the Appalachians to the Pacific Ocean, and that during all of that time, 95% of the people would remain farmers. And Hamilton favored a much stronger Uh-huh. A government that could foster development of— I hate to say industrialization, because that wasn't really a term that they used, but would make the country more productive. And more than anything, Hamilton was pushing to make the United States strong enough that it not only could stand on its own 2 feet, against the predatory powers in Europe, but that it would be— it would have the power to continue to expand and drive some of the smaller powers like Spain out of the periphery of the United States.

Do my listeners and me a favor, because I think that most Americans don't realize how important Hamilton was to the founding of the nation, and maybe because he, he was— well, A, do you think I'm right?

And B, if I'm right, why do you think that's happened, that people don't understand?

Yes, how important Hamilton was to the founding.

Uh, well, I, I think we tend to probably focus on presidents, and he was, he was never a president. He was a member of a cabinet. He was Washington's Secretary of the Treasury. His life was cut short in that duel with Aaron Burr in 1804. He was only in his mid-40s when he died in that duel. And so I think all of those things have conspired to kind of obliterate his image. And it really wasn't until almost 100 years, probably about 75 years ago, that 25 years after his death, in the late 19th century, as the country really began to urbanize and industrialize, that his reputation began to be rehabilitated. He was almost forgotten until then. And I think, too, one other factor was that the political party of which he was a part, the Federalist Party, collapsed. Not long after his death. And so he didn't have a— there wasn't a political party there to beat the drums for Hamilton.

All right, so tell us then, in a nutshell, what did he do that is so monumental?

Well, I think there were a number of things, no one thing. He served in the Continental Army for about 7 years during the Revolutionary War. He was a valorous soldier who came into combat on a number of occasions. He was a delegate from New York to the Constitutional Convention, didn't play a particularly big role at the Constitutional Convention, but he did play an extremely important role in the ratification of the Constitution. He wrote the lion's share of the essays in the Federalist Papers, and it turned out that New York was an absolutely key state in securing the ratification of the Constitution, and no one played a bigger role in New York than Hamilton. But the biggest thing, I think, that Hamilton did was he was Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, and he served in that position. position from 1789 to 1795. And the country had, had—

Hold on, I want you to tell us about that when we get back, because that's— I want people to understand how big Hamilton was. Jefferson and Hamilton, the rivalry that forged the nation. And was— one thing I'm going to ask the professor is, was their debate relevant to our debates today in the way we construct them as conservative and liberal. The book Jefferson and Hamilton.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless.

This is a periodic journey to history, a history hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Where I feature recently published books, brand new books on some aspect of history. Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged the Nation. They were huge rivals on both a personal and philosophical level. Professor of history at the University of West Georgia, John Ferling, has written the book, and again, it is called Jefferson and Hamilton, and it is up at DennisPrager.com. And the last thing that I had asked the professor was Hamilton's contribution, because Hamilton is, I think, the least sung founder that we have, the most unsung, if you will. And, uh, you were mentioning that he was a delegate of New York State, which was critical to the Constitutional Convention. He wrote the lion's share of the essays in the Federalist Papers. I mean, even if he had only done that, he would be huge. But even bigger than all of that is as Secretary of Treasury under George Washington. And go on.

Yeah, that was the key position in Washington's cabinet, at least that was how contemporaries saw it, because the economy had absolutely collapsed during the Revolutionary War. We were essentially A bankrupt nation. We were deeply in debt. We had borrowed a considerable amount of money, especially from France, a little bit from Spain and Holland during the Revolutionary War. That had to be paid back. Citizens were owed money from bonds and securities that they had purchased during the war to finance the war. And there had to be some way to resolve that issue. So everybody recognized that The Treasury Department was going to be the key position in Washington's cabinet. And, in fact, it was given almost 10 times as many employees as the State Department had initially. And Hamilton was named secretary of the Treasury. He had been an aide-de-camp to Washington during the Revolutionary War. They were close. Washington recognized Hamilton's abilities.

Right.

And Hamilton proposed a series of programs designed to extricate the country from its economic woes, and those programs were passed by Congress. And essentially, in a nutshell, to summarize it in about 15 seconds, his program, his basic program was called the funding program, which created a new debt by selling securities to the public to raise money and to pay off the old debt. And it worked.

And—

And where was the government going to get the money to pay back those securities?

Well, but people were buying the securities, and the government then would just keep selling securities, and, and as the economy would begin to flourish, their money would be coming in. And the government passed what was called an impost, which was a revenue tariff on goods that were coming into the country. That was the primary money-raising program, but there were land sales and things of that sort as well. So that generated the money to pay off—

By the way, in light of that, would you say that the average American knew that Hamilton had saved the country economically?

I think some people did. I'm not sure the average person did.

Well, the average person may not have followed— all right, yeah, but people—

Politically well-informed people understood that.

Okay.

In light of that, was there talk of Hamilton ever running for president?

Not really. I think the—

Was that because he was born outside of the United States?

No, no, that'd be because— actually, somebody wrote me an email about that yesterday and asked that question. And in fact, the founding generation excluded themselves from that restriction, because they were all born outside the United States, because The U.S. didn't exist until 1776, so they were all born in the British colonies or somewhere else. No, I think it was just that there was an assumption that John Adams was the heir apparent. He was well-established. He had played a great role in the Revolutionary War, very sacrificial role in Congress and abroad. for, for many years. And so the feeling was that, that if Washington ever stepped down, Adams would be next in line.

Okay, so there was an heir apparent. Fair enough. All right, before we get to Jefferson— after all, the book is Jefferson and Hamilton— I don't think most people know that— I think a lot of people remember from high school history that Hamilton and Burr had a duel.

Right.

What was the duel over?

Well, I think the simple thing is that Hamilton was quoted in a New York newspaper of having made some vicious private— or comments about Burr's private life. He made them at a dinner party in Albany early in 1804, got into the newspapers. Burr found out about it. Burr asked Hamilton to apologize, and Hamilton refused. And so the skids were greased for, for a duel. But the longer story is that they, they had been political rivals for about 20 years, and Hamilton had worked successfully to prevent Burr from becoming vice president back in the 1790s. Then worked to prevent Burr from becoming president in 1800, and then worked successfully to keep Burr from being elected governor of New York in 1804. So there was a deadly political rivalry between the two, though I think the— at bottom, Burr could accept the political rivalry, but what he could not Except what he thought was out of bounds was for someone like Hamilton or anybody to question his private life. And he was, he was very, a very liberated individual. He was a widower, he was sexually liberated, had wild parties at his home, mixed-race parties and whatever. And I think he felt that that was his business and it was off-limits for anyone to question that. And that's what he wanted an apology from Hamilton for. He believed that Hamilton had raised some of those questions in his comments about his private life.

Did Hamilton think he would prevail in a duel?

Well, that's a good question.

All right, answer it when we come back. Hold on, because I want to tell everybody again, the book is Jefferson and Hamilton. Hamilton. Obviously, we're going to get to Jefferson momentarily. The subtitle, though, tells you what it's about: The Rivalry That Forged the Nation. And that is largely true, just their rivalry alone on philosophical, um, and personal matters.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless—

Dennis Prager here, and it's a history hour. Bringing to you periodically some new important work of history. Jefferson and Hamilton is the book, the rivalry that forged a nation. And that's true. That rivalry is a powerful one in American history. 2 powerful men, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. We've been talking about Hamilton, and I, I'm going to get to Jefferson and obviously the nature of their dispute. before we run out of time. It's amazing how quickly these hours go. John Ferling is a professor emeritus of history, University of West Georgia. And I just really, out of human curiosity, I wanted to understand the duel issue. So he did not apologize to Aaron Burr, who, by the way, my producer, who is an aficionado of American history, described as essentially a pig. He thinks he's one of the most corrupt of the American politicians of the time. So I'm not putting you on the spot to say yay or nay, but I just wanted to add that for my listeners' edification. But in any event, so he doesn't apologize for things he says about Burr, that is Hamilton doesn't. And so they go to a duel. And I asked you, did Hamilton think he would win?

No. Well, it's not clear, really, what Hamilton was thinking. The one thing that I can say with assurance is I don't think Burr ever thought that Hamilton would come to the dueling ground. Hamilton had been involved in one capacity or another in about 10 previous duels, and in all of them, He managed to wiggle out of the duels or get them resolved somehow or other without going to the field of honor, as they called it. And, in fact, he had come very close to fighting a duel with James Monroe back in the late 1790s, and Burr had been Monroe's second, and Hamilton backed out. In that case. And, and in fact, before Hamilton backed out, Burr told Monroe, Hamilton will never fight you, he'll, he'll back out on it. So I, I think when Burr issued the challenge to Hamilton, he never thought that the duel would take place. He may have been the most surprised person, uh, of all that, that Hamilton did show up and they did fight the, uh, the duel. Hamilton wrote a letter on— it was the last Yes. Letter that he wrote, and— or one of the last, just a day or two before the duel. And he said in the letter, which was unpublished, that he was going to throw away his first shot. And so it became a matter of debate subsequently whether he did throw away that first shot or not, or whether this letter was simply a contrivance to give him greater respectability in the event that he, he was killed in the duel. So no one really knows exactly what was on Hamilton's mind when he went to Weehawken for that duel.

Okay, I feel bad because I want to get back to the rivalry here, but I just have one more question on this.

How did Burr react to killing Well, he doesn't seem to be particularly remorseful about it. Not, not at all.

Wow.

He wasn't, wasn't haunted by it, at least openly he wasn't. So it seems to be pretty cold-hearted, and I think it was, was an indication of the deep, deep feelings that He harbored against Hamilton.

It must be. I'll, I'll say, did, did the country think we lost a good man pointlessly?

Well, I think a great many people did, and, and even more, I think people were, were shocked and outraged about, about the dueling. Dueling had, had really become popular particularly among officers in the Continental Army during the war. So dueling had been going on in this country for about 30 or 35 years, and it continued after this, but this was a major step toward eliminating, uh, dueling.

I would, I would think so. Okay, hold on a moment there. John Ferling, professor of history, University of West Georgia. The book Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. And we go to Jefferson when we come back. I could spend the whole time on Hamilton, I admit it, but we have to find out where did Jefferson and Hamilton really differ.

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The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. John Ferling is the author. He's a professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia. Well, we spent a lot of— all of our time thus far on Hamilton, and there's a lot more I would love to ask, but the key here, since it's about the rivalry— so let's understand, going back to the first question. So let me put it in my words. I do this a lot with interviews so that I and my listeners get it clear. So Hamilton was more interested in a more centralized United States of America government. Jefferson was preoccupied more with individual liberty and wanted a weaker central government. Is that fair to say?

That's right.

Okay, where else did they differ?

Well, that was the fundamental difference, or the major difference, but I think the fundamental difference, and the one that I tried to emphasize in the book, is that Jefferson has a very different conception of what the American Revolution was all Right. And for Jefferson, the revolution was to create a new world. Thomas Paine in Common Sense used the line that the American Revolution would be the birthday of a new world. And Jefferson believed that. Jefferson, in fact, I think, was led to be a revolutionary in the hope of Mm-hmm. Of making sweeping social and political changes. And he saw Hamilton's program as essentially stopping those changes, and he saw Hamilton's program as a reactionary program that would restore the status quo. the society and politics largely as it had been back in the colonial days before.

Was that a fair critique?

I think it was. I mean, Hamilton says in his— in the last letter that he wrote the day before the duel, that the greatest problem that the United States faced was democracy. He called democracy a poison, in fact. And all along, I think, Hamilton, from the mid-1780s on, when he's pushing for a constitutional convention, he is pushing for a strong central government that would emasculate state power, because that's where most of the social and political reforms had been taking place since 1776.

Yeah, but let me understand, though. Isn't— wait, if he had contempt for democracy— by the way, I have Churchill's view, it's the worst form of government except for all the others, so I have certain sympathy with that— but if he was— if he felt that way, wouldn't he be supportive of strong states?

No, because that's— in fact, he, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton made— delivered a 5-hour speech. And remember, the meetings of the Constitutional Convention were held in secret, although Madison and 2 or 3 others took notes on what was said. And we know from the notes that they took that in that 5-hour speech, Hamilton says that if he had his way, he would eliminate all of the states. He would just have a national government and no state governments whatsoever.

And who would elect the national leaders?

Pardon?

Who would elect the national leaders?

Well, there— he never got around to that. And, I mean, he just— he obviously accepted what the Constitution contained, and he signed the Constitution. So that ultimately, I think he was willing to accept half a loaf.

So is it fair to say that America essentially is a combination of Jefferson and Hamilton?

Sure, I think so. I mean, it's the forces that Hamilton represented at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong government. They wanted a very strong executive. They wanted— and they got that. In fact, Jefferson was horrified when he first read a draft of the Constitution. He called the president a bad imitation of a Polish king, as it was set up in the Constitution. But on the other hand, there were forces that Jefferson represented Jefferson wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. He was the American minister in France at the time, so he didn't attend the Constitution, but there were people who felt as Jefferson did, who certainly wanted to save the states and who wanted to make change possible.

Professor, here's what makes it messy for me. Wasn't Jefferson rather taken with the French Revolution?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, but the French Revolution wanted— they started massacring their opponents.

Well, I don't think Jefferson favored that.

No, no, I know, but, but that, but that was pretty immediate.

Right. And he was actually, uh, he, he left France in September of 1789, and the revolution really gets cranked up In April and May of 1789. The Bastille is stormed in July. Jefferson leaves—

Wait, wait, when did he leave?

He left in September of 1789.

Right, so he has seen the Bastille fall.

Right, yeah, he has seen that, but—

But he has not seen—

The Reign of Terror and all of the guillotines.

But even when he finds out about it, Doesn't he remain somewhat sympathetic to the French Revolution?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay, so it's ironic for a guy who—

He's meeting with some of the French revolutionaries at the American Embassy.

Well, it just shows, folks, life is messy. Final segment coming up with Professor John Ferling. It's a terrific read, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. It's up at DennisPrager.com. This hour is devoted to history, which I periodically do with new books on history on The Dennis Prager Show.

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Hello, my friends. Final segment of this It's a history hour periodically aired on the show, some new book of history being featured. In this case, Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. We shouldn't think that everybody liked each other in the halcyon days of the founding of America, or that certainly that they all agreed with each other.

No.

But they founded the— to my mind, the greatest country ever founded. And the author is John Ferling, who is a professor of history emeritus at the University of West Georgia. So Jefferson's a complex issue for me in that he doesn't want centralized power, but he doesn't condemn the French Revolution, which rapidly devolved into huge centralized power. He— and he— there was another thing that I, uh, don't share with him, and you might, and that obviously doesn't, doesn't matter, but I, I just want to say that. But— and that is, he was much more of an egalitarian proponent, which of course is what I think attracted him to the French Revolution, than Hamilton was. Is that fair to say?

That's true. And by the way, Hamilton said early on in the French Revolution, when he gets the news of things that's happening in 1789, that nothing had— that he welcomed what was happening, and that nothing had stirred him as much since 1776, he said. So remember, I don't think they could be foresee all of the bloodshed and the reign of terror that was going to, to occur. And when Jefferson was supporting the changes in France, he, he was thinking in terms of a constitutional monarchy. They were going to write a constitution. They were going to limit the powers of the monarch. They were going to give power to the French Assembly, which hadn't met in about 150 years. Or so. So that was what Jefferson was hoping for in France. But once it did turn bloody, he continued to support it.

How do you reconcile that with your admiration for Jefferson?

Well, it's difficult to do. I mean, he, at one point, he made the statement that the bloodshed was worth it even if there was only one man and one woman left that could start the world over again. That was his famous Adam and Eve letter that—

wow—

that he wrote. I think he was a, he was a revolutionary.

Well, he was, and a utopian, and a utopian.

Yeah, right.

Well, sir, this has been a real pleasure for me.

Well, thank you.

You're very welcome. Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged the Nation, John Ferling of the University of West Georgia. Folks, history's the most fun of all. I'm Dennis Prager.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

How we regard people in general and our happiness. And this is a tough one because it will sound almost mutually contradictory, what I'm about to say. On the one hand, and this regards— both regard how you look at life. It's a philosophy of life question. That's a big part of your happiness. On the one hand, if you believe that people are basically good, if you go around with that view that human beings are good people, And that they're just, you know, there are a few nasty ones, but human beings are good people. It is— there's a very good chance that as you get older, you will become disillusioned, which means your illusion will drop, and you will then become bitter and unhappy.

Um, very quickly, in 12 steps, they have an expression that expectations are premeditated resentment. And so, you know, just substituting trust for expectation. When you trust that somebody's going to do something, act a certain way, respond in a certain fashion, when they don't do that, now all of a sudden you start building resentment.

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