Alexander Hamilton

“Originalism” And “Textualism”: The Battle For The Future Of Constitutional Government Against The Late 18th Century!

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The battle over how to interpret the Constitution in the 21st century is in full swing, with the extremist right wing Supreme Court majority emphasizing “Originalism” and “Textualism” as their basic ideological doctrine!

They want America to be judged by late 18th century interpretations, which means they challenge Alexander Hamilton and his “broad” interpretation of the Constitution.

Hamilton emphasized a broad interpretation, not a strict interpretation, of the Constitution, saying it needed to be a living document.

Even Thomas Jefferson, the original ideological opponent of Hamilton, came to recognize that Hamilton was correct, and so backed away from his original strict intepretation to support the Louisiana Purchase deal with France in 1803, doubling US territory and insuring that no other foreign power would gain further control in North America.

If one is to judge the Constitution by “originalism” and “textualism”, then America should not have had the multitude of changes that has made America a democracy, including among others:

Creation of Cabinet Agencies
End of African American Slavery by Amendment 13
Civil Rights Laws And Amendments (14, 15)
Women’s Suffrage (19)
Federal Government Agencies and Regulations
Federal Income Tax Amendment (16)
Democratizing of the US Senate by Amendment 17
Limitation of Presidential Terms by Amendment 22

This battle is over the future as compared to the limitations of the past, and America has come too far to allow the right wing interpretation to dictate the future of the nation!

Interesting Survey Of People Honored By US Monuments, From The Washington Post

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The Washington Post has published an interesting survey of people honored by US Monuments, and there are many surprises in the survey.

Eleven Presidents are in the top 50 figures represented in memorials, with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln being the top two of the fifty listed.

Also listed at number 9 is John F. Kennedy; number 10 is Thomas Jefferson; and number 11 is Ulysses S. Grant.

Andrew Jackson is number 15, a three way tie with Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt tie at 32nd.

Finally, James A. Garfield is in a four way tie at number 47 with three non Presidents.

Interestingly, NOT on the list are such Presidents as Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, or Ronald Reagan.

Some religious figures, native Americans, and African Americans (Martin Luther King (4th), Harriet Tubman (24th), Frederick Douglass (29th)) are also represented, as are a number of individuals who are not at all related to American history, including Christopher Columbus, most notably in third place with 149!

Confederate leaders are also represented, including Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson.

Other well known Americans include the following: Benjamin Franklin at number 8; Alexander Hamilton tied with two others at number 26; and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in a six way tie at number 41.

An Inauguration Day Of Relief, Optimism, And Accomplishment, And Joe Biden’s “Heroes”

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Inauguration Day 2021 was a day of a sense of relief that Donald Trump is gone, and a sense of optimism reigns and it is clear Joe Biden intends to be extremely activist on the level of a Lyndon B. Johnson or a Franklin D. Roosevelt!

This is perfectly understandable, as we face a series of crises unmatched since FDR, but in some ways as dangerous as Abraham Lincoln faced with the seditionists that started the Civil War 160 years ago.

Now we have a new group of seditionists, with the reality that party politics has been switched dramatically, as in the Civil War, the Republican Party was for the Union and African American freedom, while now the Republican Party is acting like the Confederate Democrats of the Civil War, displaying their treason and racism!

Meanwhile, President Biden has a group of “heroes” in the Oval Office to inspire him, and it says legions about the 46th President.

There are portraits of Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Also, there are busts of Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert F. Kennedy, Cesar Chavez, Daniel Webster, Rosa Parks, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Losing Presidential Candidates Who Should Have Been President: Henry Clay, Charles Evans Hughes, Hubert Humphrey

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When one looks back in American history at losing Presidential candidates who should have been President in their times, three names stand out:

Henry Clay of Kentucky, 1824, 1832, 1844

Charles Evans Hughes of New York, 1916

Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, 1968

All three of these Presidential candidates were exceptional public servants.

Henry Clay was the most important legislator of the first half of the 19th century, known as the Great Compromiser, for his promotion of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise Tariff of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850. He was the youngest Speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, and also served a number of terms in the US Senate. He stood for a stronger national government, in the Alexander Hamilton model, and had a great impact on many others including Abraham Lincoln, who became a Whig Party member due to the influence of Clay on him.

Charles Evans Hughes was the progressive Republican Governor of New York, in the Robert LaFollette-Wisconsin model in the early 20th century, served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, resigned to run for President against Woodrow Wilson in the closest electoral vote election since 1876, and third closest electoral vote election of all time, and then went on to be Secretary of State. Finally, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the 1930s, the New Deal era.

Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic Senator from Minnesota, a leading liberal figure, who had been Mayor of Minneapolis before going to the Senate. He was seen as a premier liberal in Congress, responsible for many of the ideas that became the Great Society. He was Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, unhappy in that position and forced to support the Vietnam War in speeches, which undermined his Presidential campaign in 1968 against Richard Nixon. He came back to the Senate after his Presidential defeat, and sadly died at the young age of 66 in 1978.

If these three losing Presidential candidates had won, the history of the United States would have been vastly different.

Tariffs And Republican Depressions: Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Now Donald Trump?

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Protective tariffs made sense in the time of Alexander Hamilton and the time of Henry Clay.

But in the late 19th century, big business corporations were able to create higher tariffs that were detrimental to the American worker, consumer, and economy, with the assistance of the corrupt Republican Party of the period.

In 1890, under Republican President Benjamin Harrison, we saw the passage of the McKinley Tariff, named after the future President, and it undermined the economy and contributed to the disastrous Panic of 1893, which affected the nation until 1898.

In 1930, months after the Stock Market Crash, Republican President Herbert Hoover, ignoring the pleas of hundreds of economists, signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which caused a great worsening of the developing Great Depression.

As the decades went by, most Republicans and intelligent Democrats realized that high tariffs were not good, and free trade agreements developed in the 1990s.

Some far left liberals and some far right conservatives joined forces to fight this, and now Donald Trump has declared the inception of “Tariff Wars”, which will bring down the American economy, harm consumers and farmers, and cause unemployment to rise.

Trump is alienating the whole world–including China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and more–and instead will destroy the economic lives of millions of his own supporters, if he is not stopped from his crazy, lunatic actions!

Assuming we cannot stop what he is doing, the Republicans will suffer a blood bath, that will put the Republican Party in the dustbin of history.

It is time for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in Congress to show some “cajones”, and turn against Trump before he totally destroys the nation economically, and takes unto World War III against North Korea, who would be helped by China, and Iran, who would be helped by Russia.

Traitors In American History Might Include Donald Trump If Mueller, Congressional Investigations And News Media Prove It To Be Reality!

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The subject of traitors in American history is highly controversial, even incendiary. We are not referring to spies here, or those who gave information that might have undermined America, but only to people in government and in the military. Any list would be controversial, and being a traitor is not only based on actual judicial declaration, but on the deleterious effect that government and military people had on the security and stability of the American nation.

Certainly, Benedict Arnold would be at the top of the list, having plotted to hand over West Point and thousands of American military to the British in 1780, during the American Revolution.

Also, many would say, with some qualification, that former Vice President Aaron Burr, who plotted to steal the election for President in 1800 from his own running mate, Thomas Jefferson, and was brought to trial for plotting with others to create an independent nation in the middle of the North American continent. committed treason. He was arrested, charged with treason, and put on trial, although found not guilty by Chief Justice John Marshall in the trial that he faced. Of course, Burr also killed Alexander Hamilton in a legal gun duel over the issue of honor, caused by the bitter rivalry between the two men over Hamilton’s intervention in the Presidential election of 1800, when Hamilton helped to promote the election of Jefferson, his ideological rival, but one that he trusted, while he believed Burr was a scoundrel who could not be trusted with power.

Additionally, Civil War Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and Confederate States of American President Jefferson Davis, have become the center of accusations that they were traitors, as they worked to separate the South from the nation in the Civil War. This has led to the movement to take down many Confederate statues and monuments of these and other Confederate leaders.

Once we get past these cases already mentioned, the issue of treason and traitors is more murky, but one could say that for someone to engage in league with a foreign nation’s plot to intervene in elections that would bring a person to power, could be considered treasonous. So if the accusations of Russian collusion are proved true, as is now being investigated by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and several Congressional committees, and supplemented by excellent investigatory research by major news media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NBC, CNN and others, then we may be able to declare that Donald Trump and his campaign and many of his advisers and cabinet members have engaged in a conspiracy that could be seen as treason.

The Behind The Scenes Plan To Prevent Harriet Tubman From Being On $20 Bill, And Keeping Andrew Jackson On It!

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After years of total ignoring of the contributions of African Americans in our history as a nation, finally, last year, it was determined to change the $20 bill from President Andrew Jackson to abolitionist and runaway slave Harriet Tubman.

This decision by the Treasury Department elevates a person of color and a woman to an honor well deserved.

Taking Andrew Jackson off the front of the bill is not the tragedy that it is made out to be. He has been on the $20 bill since 1928, a century after he won the Presidency. And he would be placed on the back of the bill instead, so would not disappear.

Jackson is an important historical figure, but besides being a slave owner, which clearly in itself is not the biggest issue as many Presidents before the Civil War were slave owners, he stands out as negative for the mass murder of native American (The Trail of Tears), and for his strong condemnation of and efforts to block anti slavery literature from being able to be voiced through the US Mail system, as well as his destruction of the Second National Bank of the United States, which led us into the Panic of 1837.

Keeping Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill makes total sense, as he was a very constructive and influential figure in many positive ways in our history, while Jackson has so many negatives.

Now, however, it seems that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is moving toward stopping this change in the $20 bill, due to Donald Trump’s love affair with Jackson, and Trump’s insensitivity to the evil aspects of Jackson’s time in office, and his massive racist viewpoints.

It only adds to the image of Trump as racist, which one would think he would wish to overcome by avoiding changing the well laid plans on the $20 bill.

So there is a behind the scenes attempt to prevent Harriet Tubman from being placed on the $20 bill, and there must be strong public outrage at the idea and reality of such an action.

Historic Changes In American Currency A Great Movement Forward!

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It is very inspiring to see recognition of race and gender on American currency for the first time in modern American history!

It is appropriate that Harriet Tubman be on the front of the $20 bill, with Andrew Jackson moved to the back.

It is also great that Alexander Hamilton remains on the front of the $10 bill, with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, and Sojourner Truth put on the back as a group, to mark their importance in the women suffrage movement.

And the back of the Abraham Lincoln $5 bill will have Marian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King. Jr on it.

The only truly controversial part is Jackson being switched from front to back on the $20 bill, but realize that Jackson destroyed the National Bank; condemned abolitionists working against slavery and was a slave owner himself; and forced the removal of five native American tribes to Oklahoma, the infamous “Trail of Tears”, which caused the death of more than 10,000.

So he is not being removed, but instead being placed on the back, with Harriet Truman, the heroic former slave who saved hundreds of slaves, being given recognition that is proper.

It is important that we give tribute to more than just white males on our currency, and show our appreciation of the sacrifices of these heroes and heroines!

Constitution Day Reminds Us Of When We Had Statesmen!

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Today is Constitution Day, the celebration of the signing of the US Constitution on September 17, 1787, after four long, arduous months of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

It also reminds us of the great statesmen we had two centuries ago, who overcame disputes and conflicts to do what needed to be done for the nation and its future.

When one looks at the sad reality of two Republican Presidential debates so far, and the lack of statesmanship demonstrated, it is very depressing, as we do not have any sign that the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower is capable of dealing with the domestic and foreign policy issues facing the nation in 2015.

Sure, some of the contenders in the CNN and the earlier Fox News debate come across as “better” than the others, but except for John Kasich, and possibly Jeb Bush, none of them possess real Presidential credibility, while at the least, Hillary Clinton and, if he runs, Joe Biden,  on the Democratic side, display such credibility.

We have a long way to go in the 2016 Presidential campaign, but we are not likely to find another James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman or William Paterson arising to give us hope that statesmanship is widely available!

Women On Currency: Replace Andrew Jackson Or Alexander Hamilton? Jackson, Definitely!

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Six weeks ago, this blogger wrote of the move to have a woman on American currency, with the move being to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. In an online competition, abolitionist and runaway slave Harriet Tubman won out over Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosa Parks.

All well and good, but now the Treasury Department is proposing to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, rather than Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

Such an action would be totally wrong, as Hamilton is the founder of our national banking system, the most important economic figure in American history, and also the founder of a viewpoint in government—a belief in a strong national government, and a broad interpretation of the Constitution—-which in his time was considered to be “conservatism”, but in the past century since Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been seen as the view of government of the modern Democratic Party, namely “liberalism.”

Liberalism, and the alternative word “progressivism” has been the backbone of all of the major political, social and economic reforms of the past century, and Hamilton’s philosophy is something that needs to continue to be honored.

On the other hand, Andrew Jackson, while regarded as one of the more significant Presidents, destroyed the Second National Bank of the United States, a major mistake; promoted slavery and condemned abolitionists; and promoted the death of thousands of native Americans in the despicable action, known as the “Trail of Tears”, the forced removal of five Indian tribes to Oklahoma, later taken away from native Americans, when oil was discovered in Tulsa in 1889.

Ben Bernanke, the former head of the Federal Reserve, has called for just what this blogger is proposing: leave Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, and replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill!