Hamilton vs jefferson questions?

Question

we have to present the debate between hamilton and jefferson

and i have a few questions :

where did hamilton and jefferson have their agurments?

how did it change the US?

what made this event controversial?

any answers will be greatly appreciated!!!!!

thnx:D

Answer 1

plz refer to http://country studies.us/united-states/history-41.htm....

Answer 2

They didnt actually have anything like a debate.  Both were in George Washington's cabinet, Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury and Jefferson as the first Secretary of State.  Washington wanted to believe that there wouldnt be any political parties in America; he deplored what he called "factions".  Nevertheless some people tended, like Hamilton, to lean to the right and others, like Jefferson, to the left.

Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence, though most of the ideas in it were not original with him.  Jefferson hoped America would evolve into a country of small farmers, believing this would make the most people the happiest.  The people who thought like him became the founders of the Democratic Party, and Jefferson is associated with the ideas expressed in the Declaration - all men are created equal, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.  Unfortunately, the Declaration is not the law of the land, its a mere expression of what we hoped to become.

Hamilton foresaw what we have become, an industrialized nation, which requires large amounts of capital to be concentrated in the hands of a few.  He was closely involved in writing the Constitution, which IS the law of the land, and was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, urging that the new Constitution be accepted and ratified by the states.  He stood for a strong central government, concentration of wealth in the hands of the "responsible"  class, who would use the wealth to create economic activity which would benefit all.  The people who thought like him became Whigs, and after that party died, Republicans.

Much of the controversy of Washington's first term as President involved the assumption by the Federal government of the debts of the states, in return for which the states would give up their claims to western lands.  Some states, like North Carolina, had colonial charters under the terms of which their western boundary was the Pacific Ocean, but others, like Delaware, Rhode Island and South Carolina were landlocked, surrounded by the other states, and thus they could make no claims to western land.

All the states had borrowed all the money they could to finance the Revolution, and all had been deeply in debt.  Since the war's end, some, like Virginia, had taxed their people and used the money to pay off the debts.  Others had paid nothing on their debt.  So, if the Federal government assumed these debts, the people of Virginia, who had paid their own debts, would now be taxed again to pay somebody else's debts, while the people of the states which had paid nothing would pay less than their fair share, since they would have the Virginians money to help pay their obligations.

To me, the real controversy was this.  Much of this debt was back pay owed to the Revolutionary soldiers.  During the war there had been no money to pay them, but they continued to serve, risk their lives, many of them died, and they never got paid, though they had been enlisted with the promise of a certain amount every month.  When the war was won these soldiers were sent home with a piece of paper, a "certificate of indebtedness" for the amount of back pay they were owed, to be paid when there might be money in the government's treasury to pay them.  These patriots had had no money for years, and needed some actual cash.  A class of financial speculators quickly appeared, ready to buy these certificates from the veterans for about two to five cents for every dollar they were owed  (many famous founding fathers, and mothers, were in this class of speculators, like Abigail Adams).  The soldiers had to have money and nobody much thought the certificates would ever be paid, so they sold their papers for 2-5% of face value.  The argument became whether the government should assume these debts of the states at full face value, which of course would result in a huge windfall to the speculators, or should the speculators only be paid what they had given the original holders of the certificates, plus a little for their trouble.  Hamilton and his group argued that it was crucial to the credit of the infant nation to pay these off at full face value, which would also have the benefit of concentrating the resulting wealth in the hands of a few.  This argument carried the day, America got an instant new class of wealthy people, and the soldiers to whom we owe our independence got a thorough s******g.