Thomas Jefferson And Alexander Hamilton's Social Views

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton 's social views differed greatly. Their ideals for who should be able to vote and the amount of confidence they had in the common man were like night and day. Hamilton understood people to be inconsistent and untruthful. They make decisions based on their own passions. Therefore, the voice should be given to the first class, whom he considered to be God 's chosen people. He thought they had a special privilege simply because they were born into the upper class. Hamiltonians, those who supported the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, generally consisted of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and other wealthy persons. He went as far as to wish to raise voting qualifications because it would prevent …show more content…
In fact, he so fiercely supported the rich that he passed taxes that would ultimately end up hurting the lower classes. This included taxes like the tax on whiskey that resulted in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. On the other hand, Jefferson supported the common man. He believed the public should be able to vote, not just the upper class. Who better to voice to the opinion of the people than the people themselves? In his opinion, the people would be honest about the public 's interest, and as long as people were well-informed, they could be relied on. Obviously, the high voting qualifications were absurd to him. He had such great faith in the common man, especially farmers. As a matter of fact, he was confident that if the government was left in the hands of only the officials, then the government would collapse. As one can see, Hamilton and Jefferson held strong contrasting views about the social aspects of the new United States including the amount of power trusted to the common man and those who should be …show more content…
The American Revolution was fought to escape the hand of an overpowering monarch. Many Democratic - Republicans were afraid of a powerful federal government because they did not want to be at the mercy of a monarchy again. Jefferson deemed the country too large for a single government, and also believed that a single government would lead to corruption. In general, the federal government was oppressive in his opinion, and it gained power at the expense of the people. Jefferson wanted states to be independent within themselves, but united when dealing with foreign affairs. The federal government was only for dealing with foreign concerns. On the contrary, not only did Hamilton want to model the American economy after England’s, but he wanted to shape the government after them as well. Hamilton believed state power will be the enemy of the federal government. State governments will make it too difficult to maintain the national government, they are bias, and Americans should have a firm union in this new nation. Overall, he was completely against state governments. He favored a strong federal government made of many wealthy members. Moreover, Hamilton held a loose interpretation of the Constitution. He even supported sometimes restrictions on speech and press under certain circumstances. Hamilton even challenged the foundation of the government saying that the Articles of Confederation were radical, members of the