The Two Real Parties: The Hamiltonians And The Jeffersonians
NOVEMBER 25, 2012 BY 1 COMMENT
The two opposing political philosophies being debated in 2012 can be traced back to George Washington’s presidency. Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury and a Federalist, offered an economic plan that created a centralized bank (First Bank of the United States), imposed trade tariffs and exise taxes, and had the federal government assume all of the states’ debt. He justified government expansion by referring to implied powers implicit in the Constitution. Former Federalist Thomas Jefferson opposed the expansion of government, supported states rights, and followed a more explicit interpretation of the Constitution with strict limitations on federal government. Eventually, Jefferson’s side formed a party referred to by historians and people of the time as Republicans, but known today as Democratic-Republicans. Hamilton and Jefferson are the patrons of the two opposing American political philosophies of big government vs. small government.President Washington didn’t openly join either side, but he supported Hamilton’s policies as his Treasurer. Both the House and Senate were pro-administration (Federalist) throughout Washington’s presidency and remained Federalist through John Adam’s (also a Federalist) presidency. During this period, there was a financial crisis in 1792 when Hamilton bailed out the Bank of New York, the bank he started, through providing securities that brought the price of securities down by 24%. There was also a land speculation bubble that burst in 1796.From 1800 to 1825, the Democratic-Republicans dominated Congress. The charter of the First Bank of The United States expired in 1811 and wasn’t renewed. After the Nepoleanic wars ended, there was an ”Era of Good Feelings”, where there was a general feeling of Unity between all politicians as the Federalist party faded into history. There was basically a diluted, moderate Democratic-Republican party. The Second Bank of The United States was chartered in 1817 as a reaction to the difficulties in financing the War of 1812. After the panic of 1819, however, politicians split into Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian factions again over the existence of a centralized bank.The Democrats emerged as the Jeffersonian Party; and the National Republicans, who later became Whigs, favored Hamiltonian policy. The Jeffersonian Democrats dominated the presidency and both houses until 1860. After the charter for the Second Bank of The United States was allowed to expire by Jackson’s administration in 1837, there was a contraction and a five-year long depression. Despite this economic downturn (and a brief surge in Whig popularity), there was no central bank again until 1913. There was another panic that spread from Great Britain’s central bank in 1857, but the economy quickly recovered after President Buchanan (Jeffersonian Democrat) lowered tariffs and withdrew government usage of bank notes. The panic leveled out and was over by 1859.In 1854, a new Republican Party formed from the remnants of the Whigs (as did other abolitionist third parties to fight slavery.) The Republicans dominated Congress and the presidency until 1885. After the war, they became the representatives of Hamilton’s philosophies. In order to fund the Civil War, the US government left the gold standard and created greenbacks, or legal tender fiat currency that was not readily redeemable in gold. As a result of the war, the transition back to the gold standard, and Republican protectionist tariffs, the growth of the American industrial revolution was slowed in what is known as the long depression between 1873 and 1896.Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson both took Hamiltonian policy to a new level in the early 1900s. Much like our last two presidents, their party affiliation was nominal. They introduced progressivism and government activism throughout their presidency, pushing antitrust laws and new departments like the ICC, as well as reinstating a central bank and introducing the income tax. Party members from both sides opposed certain aspects of the activism and supported others. Pure Jeffersonian policies were abandoned. There was a panic in 1907 that was in recovery by 1908 during Roosevelt’s presidency. During Wilson’s presidency, we entered WWI and imposed a top income tax rate of 73%, when just seven years before there was no income tax at all. This led to a crash in 1920.After the heavy government expansion of the progressive era and the crash that resulted, there was a backlash and a redefining of the parties once again. After Wilson’s administration, politicians who favored Hamiltonian policy aligned themselves with the Democrats, while Jeffersonian policies were revived by the Republicans. The next two presidents, Harding and Coolidge, were Jeffersonian Republicans backed by Republican Congresses throughout their terms. They cut taxes and reduced government. This policy led to the roaring twenties. The roaring twenties ended with a crash in 1929.A month after the stock market crash, the market bottomed out and began to make a recovery. After unemployment went from 9% in November of 1929 to 6% in June of 1930, without any government interference, Hoover decided to compromise with Hamiltonian principle and urge wage controls and protectionist tariffs. The Republican Congress went along. The market quickly turned south again; and the more Hoover did to help, the worse it got.After Hoover and the Republicans’ failures with the recovery, the Democrats took over both houses of Congress and the Presidency with Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt began what he called modern liberalism based on the new Keynesian economic model. Modern liberalism was and is Hamiltonian progressivism on steroids. Massive government regulation, price controls, and protective trade tariffs led to a depression that only ended after those policies were scrapped for the WWII war effort over ten years later.After the Great Depression and World War II, Americans in general had had enough of big government. There was no proper plan to handle the switch to a peacetime economy. The removal of some price controls resulted in inflation and some of the biggest public sector union strikes in history, while remaining agricultural price controls led to farmers refusing to sell grain in 1945 and 1946. The chaos resulted in Congress being lost to the Republicans in 1946 for the first time since 1930. Anti-union legislation as well as tax cuts were passed by this Congress by overriding Truman’s vetoes. Truman was in trouble in the 1948 election, so he convinced fellow Democrats at the convention to support more civil rights policies to muster support for Hamiltonian policy, despite Southern Democrat objections. He won the Presidency, and the Democrats won back Congressional control. During Truman’s second term, he began integration in the military and made discrimination against public service employees illegal. Beyond that, Truman’s second term was rife with corruption and cronyism in the IRB (the predecessor to the IRS) and court appointees, Union Strikes, and unrest from continued price controls, as well as a war in Korea that was not declared by Congress. Truman lost the nomination to run again in 1952. There was a recession in 1949, shortly after Truman’s Fair Deal was enacted and the Federal Reserve tightened the money supply. After The Korean War, more inflation was expected, so the Federal Reserve implemented a more restrictive monetary policy than necessary, leading to a recession in 1953.Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the presidency, and the Republicans won the majority in both houses of Congress in 1952. Eisenhower returned to a financially responsible, progressive Hamiltonian Republican policy and blamed the Old Guard of the Republican party for being too inflexible. He lost both houses of Congress to the Democrats in 1954. Democrats maintained their majority in both houses until 1980. Although he removed wage and price controls and cut back remaining New Deal legislation, ended the Korean War, and balanced the budget, he also expanded Social Security and proposed the Interstate Highway System. It was the Eisenhower administration that effectively began the marginalization of Jeffersonian Republicanism for responsible Hamiltonianism. There were two short, minor recessions in 1958 and 1960 that resulted from the Federal Reserve’s attempts to avoid economic difficulties.John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed a Democrat-controlled Congress throughout both of their presidencies. Kennedy returned to Keynsianism, loosening monetary policy and increasing government spending to create our first non-war, non-recession deficit. Kennedy’s policies resulted in the fastest growth in American history up until that point. Johnson continued and expanded Kennedy’s policies by creating The Great Society. The Great Society was a dramatic expansion of government control. Everything from Medicare and Medicaid to current education policy to arts endowments, welfare, urban renewal, and even heavy environmental policies was all born during Johnson’s administration. The bubble created by Keynsian policies led to an economic slump that started in 1966 and led to the worst inflation in a century. johnson didn’t seek re-election.Richard Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968, but both Houses of Congress remained Democrat throughout his administration. Nixon was a Hamiltonian Republican who created a “new Federalism”. He reduced the power of states, lifted the gold standard, and put wage and price controls in place. His policies were a temporary fix, and high inflation returned with a vengeance accompanied by rising unemployment at the end of his presidency.Gerald Ford assumed the presidency in 1974 after Nixon resigned. He was another Hamiltonian Republican who saw a short presidency with a Democrat-controlled Congress. Ford continued the tradition of government spending, which increased the deficit and had no discernible effect on inflation or unemployment.Jimmy Carter was a Hamiltonian Democrat elected in 1976. Carter also had a Democrat majority in both houses of Congress. He tried following Ford’s policies, then reversing them, leading to a new economic phenomenon called stagflation (or high inflation and high unemployment at the same time resulting from the erratic policies.) The economy progressively got worse, leading to a shift from Democrat to Republican control in the Senate and the Presidency, for the first time since 1952, in 1980.The first Jeffersonian Republican President since Calvin Coolidge was elected in 1980. Ronald Reagan enjoyed the only three Republican majority houses of Congress elected between 1954 and 1994. All three were Senates. He cut funding of government programs and lowered taxes. The freeing up of the economy led to a deep recession that lasted until 1982, followed by a robust recovery that didn’t see another recession until 1990, even with greatly increased defense spending to push the Soviet Union to bankruptcy.George Bush Sr. was a Hamiltonian Republican elected in 1988. He gave into the demands of the Democrat majority in Congress during his presidency; this led to a prolonged recession and made Bush a one term President.In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton was elected with a Democrat majority in both houses of Congress. Clinton claimed to be a Centrist who followed responsible Hamiltonian policy over the Keynesian policies of the FDR Democrats. He went too far with a push for more strict gun control laws and universal healthcare, however, and lost The House of Representatives for the first time in forty years and the Senate for the fist time in eight. Congress remained Republican until 2006. Huge advancements in technology and deregulation led to Clinton being President during the biggest technological boom in history. It was blown up into a bubble through The Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low, leading to over-investment. The bubble burst during his last year as president in 2000 after the Federal Reserve brought interest rates back up.George W. Bush became President in 2000. He was a Hamiltonian Republican with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress for the first 3/4 of his term. Together, they increased spending more than any administration since Lyndon Johnson. The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to counter the recession of 2000 while legislation was passed for the government to insure risky mortgages to help more people own homes. This rebirth of Keynesianism led to a housing bubble that burst in 2007. The recession lasted until the end of Bush’s presidency, despite bailouts in 2008.Barack Obama was elected in 2008, along with a Democrat majority in both houses. Barack Obama is a Hamiltonian Democrat who, along with his Democrat Congress, also followed the Keynesian policies of Bush. The economy continued to get worse until 2010. In 2010, The House of Representatives as well as many state legislatures were taken over by a new Jeffersonian Republican movement referred to as the Tea Party. (Of course, we all know what happened in the couple of years that followed.)I hope you see how important it is to return to the small government Jeffersonian policies that have proven to have more beneficial effects on the economy and the quality of life for all Americans.
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November 2012 • Volume 41, Number 11 Is the Constitution Colorblind?
Edward J. Erler
California State University, San Bernardino
EDWARD J. ERLER is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino. He earned his B.A. from San Jose State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. He has published numerous articles on constitutional topics in journals such asInterpretation, the Notre Dame Journal of Law, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He was a member of the California Advisory Commission on Civil Rights from 1988-2006 and served on the California Constitutional Revision Commission in 1996. He is the author ofThe American Polity and co-author of The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration.The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on September 9, 2012, during a conference on “The Supreme Court: History and Current Controversies.”
An important case was heard by the Supreme Court last month involving a race-conscious affirmative action program at the University of Texas. This case, Fisher v. Texas, will decide whether racial classifications intended to promote student diversity are consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This question, of course, had already been answered in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, when the Court approved a race-conscious admissions plan at the University of Michigan Law School. But the situation at the University of Texas is somewhat different and may provoke the Court to reconsider its 2003 decision.
Another case that the Supreme Court will have to take up in the near future involves what appears to be an unresolvable conflict in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As originally passed, the Civil Rights Act prohibited employment discrimination against any individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. A later amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, added a “disparate impact provision,” which allows a claim of discrimination to be established on the basis of disproportionate racial results. The impossible situation here is that to avoid a disparate impact violation, employers might feel themselves obligated to engage in racial discrimination in order to achieve acceptable results.
In Ricci v. DeStefano, decided in 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that a municipality could not discriminate against individuals on the basis of race in order to insulate itself against a claim of disparate impact. The city of New Haven, Connecticut, held competitive examinations for promotions within its fire department. Even though the test had been professionally designed to eliminate racial and ethnic bias, all who scored high enough for promotion were white or Hispanic. In order to avoid a disparate impact charge that surely would be brought by black firefighters, the city discarded the exam results and did not promote any of the candidates. This disappointed those firefighters who had passed the exam, and they claimed disparate treatment under the Civil Rights Act. The Court in the Ricci decision attempted to avoid the intractable contradiction in the law by arguing that New Haven had no “strong basis in evidence” that it would have lost a disparate impact challenge and therefore its discrimination against the individuals who passed the exam violated the prohibition against racial treatment. The Court, however, gave no credence to the argument that the equal protection guarantees of the Civil Rights Act are at war with its disparate impact provisions.CONNECT WITH US
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- The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
Aristotle
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/aristotle134193.html#Z51...
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- I am not an "english major", could you parse Article V for me? Please?If you are sufficiently literate to have written the above sentence you are literate enough to understand Article V. Go read it. What it says is what it means.“The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United Statesv. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824)."~District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
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- "Buckley Defines the MovementWhen necessary, William F. Buckley Jr. took decisive action against the irresponsible Right. The first prominent extremist read out of the movement was the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, whose growing influence among young conservatives alarmed Buckley and other conservatives.In December 1957, Whittaker Chambers took up arms against the founder of objectivism and her 1,168-page novel Atlas Shrugged. Chambers, the former Communist atheist and now firm believer in a transcendent God, declared that the story of Atlas Shrugged was preposterous, its characters crude caricatures, its message “dictatorial.”Although Rand, a refugee from Soviet Russia, insisted that she was anti-statist, she called for a society run by a technocratic elite. “Out of a lifetime of reading,” Chambers said, “I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained.”[38]Buckley ensured that Chambers was joined by other influential conservatives. Russell Kirk called objectivism a false and detestable “inverted religion.” Frank Meyer accused Rand of “calculated cruelties” and the presentation of an “arid subhuman image of man.” Garry Wills, a Buckley protégé, called Rand a “fanatic.”A furious Rand described National Review as “the worst and most dangerous magazine in America” and vowed never again to remain in the same room with Bill Buckley, a promise that she scrupulously kept.[39]The casting out of Robert Welch and the extremist positions of the John Birch Society that he headed proved more difficult and contentious but was necessary, in accordance with Buckley’s design to build an effective, prudential conservative counter-establishment.Over the objections of Brent Bozell, publisher William Rusher, Frank Meyer, and new senior editor William Rickenbacker, Buckley wrote an extended editorial expelling Welch from the conservative movement.Supported by James Burnham and his sister Priscilla, Buckley declared that Welch was “damaging the cause of anti-Communism” with his inability to make the critical distinction between an “active pro-Communist” and an “ineffectually anti-Communist Liberal.”He said scornfully that Welch’s scoreboard describing the United States as “50–70 percent Communist-controlled” was in effect saying that “the government of the United States is under operational control of the Communist Party.” Buckley yielded to no one in his passionate opposition to Communism, but Welch’s position was not only wrong but harmful to the cause of anti-Communism.He concluded his editorial by saying that “love of truth and country called for the firm rejection of Welch’s false counsels.”[40]Some subscribers who were John Birch Society members angrily cancelled their subscriptions, as Rusher had warned they would.But the great majority of readers agreed with Senators Barry Goldwater and John Tower, who wrote letters to the editor endorsing the magazine’s stand. They understood that, rather than dividing the conservative cause, Buckley had strengthened it.Another letter read: “You have once again given a voice to the conscience of conservatism.”It was signed “Ronald Reagan, Pacific Palisades, Cal.”[41]Buckley also took a firm stand against anti-Semitism, informing NR writers that the magazine would “not carry on its masthead the name of any person whose name also appears on the masthead of the American Mercury.” Under owner Russell Maguire, the once-respected magazine had descended into the swamps of neo-Nazism, endorsing, for example, the theory of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy set forth in the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
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- HEARSAY TESTIMONY is used in every trial - I would submit that all testimony is hearsay as the logic problem created by the 4 people standing on different corner viewing the same accident - all testifying to a reality (not hearsay) but differ greatly form each other.
If the "facts", not witnesses testimony which we have proved are defective, are presented to the jury of peers - then they can come to a conclusion as to guilt or innocence - Lawyer and Judges be damned for they are not but the distorter of the facts at hand and the twisters of the meanings of words. If evidence can not stand on it's own then there should be no indictment from the grand Jury or admission of a suit by a Court.
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- Allen,
I said present the facts to the Jury that can be done by anyone including an
Attorney - the Judge is there to issues the final order of the Juries decision and to give direction to the Jury on the law if they ask questions.
Funny, that you fight this system and tell us it is a joke - well Sir I would say it has proven itself to work quite well for tens of thousands of cases each week in the Small claims courts of the many States. Let us use the same system of presentation of the facts to a Jury supervised by a Judge. I works quire well for up to $ 15,000 or more in some State.
Would the lawyers approve of increasing the amount to say $ 250,000 or more?
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- Allen,
The hearsay statement in CONTEXT was to present the old logic problem of who saw what and from what angle. The statement of all testimony is hearsay then is a conclusion of the logic problem because none can support the other so three must be wrong and only one correct. I, like the Constitution have no problem with criminal law being prosecuted by the government as a just system and is well handled in the Constitution with protections from a run away prosecution.
My issues are with the Constitution and civil law. Society adopted the UCC laws so why is your profession still using the British common case precedent law to litigate business contracts or other business conflicts covered under the UCC?
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- Allen,
We shall agree to disagree for from your point of view the system is working has not been usurped and all is well in the society because the legal system is protecting them.
You are trained well in adversarial behavior the trait of your trade. Those will be my last comments to present another side of your selected profession. If it is so perfect why do you all call it "PRACTICE"? [the end]
- Permalink Reply by on
- HEARSAY TESTIMONY is used in every trial - I would submit that all testimony is hearsay as the logic problem created by the 4 people standing on different corner viewing the same accident - all testifying to a reality (not hearsay) but differ greatly form each other.
If the "facts", not witnesses testimony which we have proved are defective, are presented to the jury of peers - then they can come to a conclusion as to guilt or innocence - Lawyer and Judges be damned for they are not but the distorter of the facts at hand and the twisters of the meanings of words. If evidence can not stand on it's own then there should be no indictment from the grand Jury or admission of a suit by a Court.
- Permalink Reply by on
- Allen,
I said present the facts to the Jury that can be done by anyone including an
Attorney - the Judge is there to issues the final order of the Juries decision and to give direction to the Jury on the law if they ask questions.
Funny, that you fight this system and tell us it is a joke - well Sir I would say it has proven itself to work quite well for tens of thousands of cases each week in the Small claims courts of the many States. Let us use the same system of presentation of the facts to a Jury supervised by a Judge. I works quire well for up to $ 15,000 or more in some State.
Would the lawyers approve of increasing the amount to say $ 250,000 or more?
- Permalink Reply by on
- Allen,
The hearsay statement in CONTEXT was to present the old logic problem of who saw what and from what angle. The statement of all testimony is hearsay then is a conclusion of the logic problem because none can support the other so three must be wrong and only one correct. I, like the Constitution have no problem with criminal law being prosecuted by the government as a just system and is well handled in the Constitution with protections from a run away prosecution.
My issues are with the Constitution and civil law. Society adopted the UCC laws so why is your profession still using the British common case precedent law to litigate business contracts or other business conflicts covered under the UCC?
- Permalink Reply by on
- Allen,
We shall agree to disagree for from your point of view the system is working has not been usurped and all is well in the society because the legal system is protecting them.
You are trained well in adversarial behavior the trait of your trade. Those will be my last comments to present another side of your selected profession. If it is so perfect why do you all call it "PRACTICE"? [the end]
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- "...the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training, and for these they will require time... "
March 27, 1824, Thomas Jefferson
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