Question

DId the United States draw more from the vision of Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson?

Answer 1

"Hamilton had the foresight to see the rise of the United States as an economic and military power over Great Britain and the other European powers. All of Hamilton's policies as Treasury Secretary and as the closest counselor to President Washington were intended to encourage his fellow Americans to' think constantly,' as Hamilton put it. He wanted the people to think first and foremost of themselves as Americans— not New Yorkers or Virginians. "Hamilton became the first secretary of the nation's treasury at a time when South Carolina and New Hampshire citizens had about as much in common with each other as they had with somebody from Tasmania. Hamilton succeeded in part in creating an American sense of identity by creating institutions that would bind the people, not their respective states, to the national government, such as the national bank and the assumption by the national government of the Revolutionary War's state debts.

Hamilton's dream of a United States in which its people "continentally" felt had implications when the nation experienced the biggest crisis during the Civil War. "The concept of union, of American nationhood, was so deeply embedded in parts of the North that the soldiers of the Union were prepared to die for it. It's no accident that during the Gilded Age Hamilton was a revered figure, seen as the most impressive founding father by presidents like James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and other Republicans.

Jefferson was primarily responsible for the dissolution of government and religion and for the general consensus at the time of the Revolution that the state would be democratic and that most of its office holders would be elected. The Louisiana Purchase orchestrated by Jefferson is the main reason why America became a transcontinental country that eventually allowed it to become an economic, military and diplomatic superpower.Although Jefferson himself was a member of the landed aristocracy of Virginia, he led the dismantling of his primogeniture and entail system that prevented landowners from dividing properties into future generations.