Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today
by Thomas DiLorenzo
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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 show more 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. show lessTags
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This is one of the best history books I have ever read.
Nearly all of the salient traits of the modern Leviathan State headquartered in Washington – the imperial presidency, judicial activism, the Federal Reserve System's institutionalized counterfeiting and fraud, the ever-metastasizing government debt, the ever-expanding ranks of tax-subsidized corporate welfare parasites, the reduction of the states to docile administrative units of a unitary regime – were inspired by, and are the fulfillment of, Hamilton's designs.– "Hamilton's Curse and the Death of the Dollar Standard" (via reason)
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16 Works 1,429 Members
Thomas J. DiLorenzo is the author of The Real Lincoln, How Capitalism Saved America, and Lincoln Unmasked.
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Alexander Hamilton
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Politics and Government, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 973.4092 — History & geography History of North America United States Constitutional period (1789-1809) Constitutional period (1789-1809) Constitutional history
- LCC
- E302 .H2 .D55 — History of the United States United States Revolution to the Civil War, 1775/1783-1861 Biography (Late eighteenth century)
- BISAC
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- Members
- 182
- Popularity
- 176,866
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.85)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 4
