[Brion McClanahan]

“Our country would look completely different if we did what Hamilton would have wanted.”

Yes, if you are talking about Hamilton’s proposed government at the Philadelphia Convention; no if you are talking about the current mess in D.C. We live in Hamilton’s America, particularly in regard to political-economy and the power of the general government. Or it would be better to suggest that we live in Robert Morris’ government with a scattering of Pennsylvania nationalism thrown in, but no one knows who Robert Morris is. Hamilton soaked in everything he sold him and then made it policy.

But it must emphasized strongly that Hamilton, Marshall, James Wilson, and other ardent nationalists were the outliers, not the norm. Hamilton, in fact, picked up his toys and went home during the Philadelphia Convention because the other two New York delegates continually made his vote irrelevant. And he was called out on the carpet during the New York Ratifying Convention as a liar.