Eye Opening | Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It...

Political Economy at Its Best | Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for ... | Thomas Dilorenzo

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	• Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for ... Thomas Dilorenzo Crown Forum, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Timely & Relevant

I heard about this book when Prof. DiLorenzo was interviewed on "Pro Business With Dr. Mike Beitler," a free-market, libertarian internet-radio show. Frankly, I had no idea that what weseeing today (central banking out of control, government intervention in every aspect of our lives) is rooted in the vision of Alexander Hamilton. This book made me realize the difference between Hamilton's vsion and Jefferson's vision. Fascinating reading!

Christina C.

Eye Opening

"Hamilton's Curse" was a real eye-opener that exposes the source of our government's empire building, fiscal insanity, and total disregard of the Constitution. If only Aaron Burr had done us the favor twenty years earlier....

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Political Economy at Its Best

DiLorenzo has made a difficult subject readable. It is an American political economic history covering a period from the Ratification Debates to the present. It is told from the contrasting viewpoints of Jefferson and Hamilton, as to the political system which the secession from England was meant to create.

For me, it covered new ground and reinterpreted well some ground I thought I had understood. It is both chronological and topical history. The author's use of original and secondary sources added to its value. All of which made it a fruitful present exercise and a tool for future reference.

As has been noted by other reviewers, it has special present circumstance value. National Bank/Federal Reserve Bank is the pivot point of today's rational pessimism. And it is the legacy of Alexander Hamilton. Greed comes with human seed; Hamilton's ideology centralized it.

I suppose in the dark history of "democracy" and its variants, one could have drawn the baseline with Solon or Pericles. However, in the uniquely American variant of a "democratic" social contract, it is Hamilton's legacy that needs scrutiny. And DiLorenzo delivered such fully.

Whether it is the Supreme Court, The Fed, regulatory practices, the income tax, direct election of Senators, protectionism, or standing armies, Hamilton is the genesis. Our "Great Experiment" had a frighful beginning, a precarious middle and now an uncertain ending. We had a chance to design a system based on Jefferson's theories, but we have chosen otherwise. Perhaps we're cursed by Hamilton.

Robert Higgs, one of the many fine writers referenced in this book, asked himself in print recently: have we been led by fools or mountebanks? He answered: yes! And in reading this great book, I thought often that Hamilton might be both.

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Two of the most influential figures in American history. Two opposing political philosophies. Two radically different visions for America.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were without question two of the most important Founding Fathers. They were also the fiercest of rivals. Of these two political titans, it is Jefferson??the revered author of the Declaration of Independence and our third president??who is better remembered today. But in fact it is 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 provides the troubling answer in Hamilton?s Curse.

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??core beliefs that did not die with Hamilton in his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. 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?
? Established the imperial presidency (Hamilton himself proposed a permanent president??in other words, a king)
? 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
? Inflated the role of the federal courts in order to eviscerate individual liberties and state sovereignty
? Pushed economic policies that lined the pockets of the wealthy and created a government system built on graft, spoils, and patronage
? Transformed state governments from Jeffersonian bulwarks of liberty to beggars for federal crumbs

By debunking the Hamiltonian myths perpetuated in recent admiring biographies, 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.

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