P136
Hamilton visited the Schuylers each evening, and the Schylers felt flattered that the ex-clerk from the West Indies had chosen them.
汉密尔顿还是美国建国以来第一个政坛性丑闻的主角,他和一个有夫之妇有染并被勒索,他在报纸上公开了他的污点并详细交待了这段事件。天才汉密尔顿的性格缺陷还是让他在政治生涯中吃了不少亏。除了华盛顿之外的国父们都对他混乱的私生活直摇头,各种诟病。
亚当斯对他的评论:
P522 Adams
“His fornications, adulteries and his incests (an apparent insinuation that he had slept with Angelica Church) were propagated far and wide.”
一生都很戏剧化的汉密尔顿连死法都很别具一格,他死于和当时副总统Aaron Burr的决斗(Duel),在49岁的盛年生命戛然而止,用自己的生命捍卫荣誉。
AP/SAT2考点
汉密尔顿的核心主张是美国需要一个强有力的联邦政府(a strong central government),独立战争还没结束的时候,他就开始大力呼吁召开制宪会议,他是参与制宪会议的少有的草根出身的代表。
他成为联邦党人(the Federalist)的核心领导人物,和杰弗逊领导的民主共和党(the Democratic-Republican)对美国的未来有完全不同的愿景和期待。
Hamilton Jefferson
汉密尔顿核心的经济政策是:
1. 以面值偿还独立战争时期美国欠下的债务(Debt);
2. 要求国会通过法令鼓励制造业,包括保护性进口关税(Tariffs),鼓励新发明;
3. 建立国家银行(National Bank),银行为私有,联邦政府持有部分股份。
在美国国父中从头至尾一直支持汉密尔顿的只有华盛顿,汉密尔顿一直面临政敌的反对和质疑,最终还是以出色的才华领导美国在建国后短短的几年内,恢复了国际信用,建立了经济制度,为美国搭起了经济发展的舞台,打下了100年后世界一流经济强国的制度基础。
P110
Unlike Jefferson, Hamilton never saw the creation of America as a magical leap across a chasm to an entirely new landscape, and he always thought the New World had much to learn from the Old.
P345 Economy
In a nation of self-made people, Hamilton became an emblematic figure because he believed that government ought to promote self-fulfillment, self-improvement, and self-reliance.
Hamilton did not create America’s market economy so much as foster the cultural and legal setting in which it flourished. A capitalist society requires certain preconditions. Among other things, it must establish a rule of law through enforceable contracts; respect private property; create a trustworthy bureaucracy to arbitrate legal disputes; and offer patents and other protections to promote invention. The abysmal failure of the Article of Confederation to provide such an atmosphere was one of Hamilton’s principal motives for promoting the Constitution. “It is known,” he wrote, “that the relaxed conduct of the state governments in regard to property and credit was one of the most serious diseases under which the body politic labored prior to the adoption of our present constitution and was a material cause of that state of pubic opinion which led to its adoption.” He converted the new Constitution into a flexible instrument for creating the legal framework necessary for economic growth. He did this by activating three still amorphous clauses--the necessary-and-proper clause, the general-welfare clause, and the commerce clause--making them the basis for government activism in economics.
常考最高法院法案Marbury v. Madison (1803),McCulloch v. Maryland (1819),大法官John Marshall的裁决都来自汉密尔顿思想的影响。作为汉密尔顿的宿敌杰弗逊的表亲(cousin),John Marshall在政治上可谓汉密尔顿灵魂附体,在最高法院一直大力贯彻联邦党人的核心思想。