Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Why did Jefferson oppose Hamilton's economic plan?

Jefferson's Republican political ideal entailed an America whose wealth was founded on the ownership of land. As a substantial landowner himself, Jefferson necessarily gravitated to those of a similar economic status. For Jefferson and the Republicans the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton represented a clear threat to their interests. They regarded Hamilton as someone in lock-step with East Coast banking and commercial interests. Hamilton wanted to see the United States as a trading nation, a leading player in international finance, an economic powerhouse that would take its rightful place in the world economy. To this end, Hamilton proposed the establishment of a federal bank that would pay off the country's enormous war debts and lend money to businesses to help them grow and expand.
Jefferson bitterly opposed Hamilton and his vision of America's economic future. For one thing, he believed that Hamilton's plan vested way too much power in the federal government. This represented a clear threat to the tradition of republican liberty which Jefferson so deeply venerated, a tradition enshrined in the ultimate political sovereignty of the states.
On a more purely economic level, Jefferson opposed Hamilton as he felt that the interests of the commercial elite would come to take precedence over American agriculture, especially in the South. Hamilton was a visionary who understood that America's future was as an industrial power. Jefferson, on the other hand, foresaw a number of serious long-term problems on the horizon. A move from an overwhelmingly agricultural economy to an industrial one would undoubtedly lead to American farmers and landowners having less of a say in how the country was run. Aside from the serious political consequences of such a development, Jefferson feared that increased trade with the rest of the world would lead to the United States being deluged by cheap foreign imports, against which the American agricultural sector would be unable to compete.

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