Alexander Hamilton Case Study

This history study will define the important influence of Alexander Hamilton in the formation of the First Bank of the United States (FBUS) in the Washington Administration. Hamilton sought to finance the national debt through the FBUS, which laid the foundation for a federalized system of financing the government. Hamilton served as the Secretary of the Treasury for President Washington from 1789 to 1795. In this capacity Hamilton utilized the FBUS to centralize the government’s financial system in order to establish credit, issue currency, and to pay off the massive debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. During this time, Hamilton encountered fierce resistance from Andrew Jackson and James Madison in opposition to a strong central bank, …show more content…
In many cases, the privatization of the Federal Reserve is a controversial topic in terms of the debate on the sovereignty of the U.S. government, which is, in reality, controlled by private banking financiers. Certainly, the private ownership of money printing, bond agreements, interest rates, and other aspects of credit services provided by the Federal Reserve wield massive private sector power over the financial management of the United States government. The U.S. Constitution defines a country governed by “we the people”, but the overarching economic power of the Federal Reserve has become an issue in terms of the practice of manipulating currency values and the problem of monetary fiscal policy, such as “quantitative easing”, that has given massive power to private sector ‘stakeholders’ that use this money to find massive banks. Of course, these new policies go against Hamilton’s policy of “Public Credit”, but the allowance of private banking financiers to control the country is a serious problem for maintaining any like a “democracy” or republican form of representational government. After all, Federal Reserve officials/managers may be appointed by the President and/or the Senate, but the “owners” of the Federal Reserve are often the “revolving door” private sector banking officials. In other words, Hamilton’s privatization schemes for the FBUS laid the foundation for private sector banking officials to also serve as Federal Reserve officials. For instance, Jamie Dimon (a member of the New York Federal Bank) used government money to refinance JP Morgan Bank and by purchasing AIG in the 2008 economic crisis. This conflict of interest is a major problem for Federal Reserve