31 - Hamilton and Jefferson, Part 1
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VOICE ONE:
THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
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I'm Frank Oliver. Today, Ray Freeman and I tell about the beginning of the two-party political system in the United States.
VOICE TWO:
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| George Washington |
George Washington became America's first president in Seventeen-Eighty-Nine. He was the most famous man in the land. He commanded the forces of the American colonies in their successful rebellion against Britain. He was elected president without opposition.
George Washington did not belong to a political party. There were no political parties in America at that time. This does not mean all Americans held the same political beliefs. They did not. But there were no established organizations that offered candidates for elections.
Two such organizations began to take shape during President Washington's first administration. One was called the Federalists. Its leader was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The other was called the Republicans. Its leader was Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Each group represented the political beliefs of its leader.
VOICE ONE:
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| Alexander Hamilton |
Hamilton and the Federalists wanted a strong national government with a powerful president and courts. They supported policies that helped bankers and wealthy businessmen. They urged close economic and diplomatic ties with Britain. They did not like democracy, which they described as mob rule.
The Federalist Party led by Alexander Hamilton was not the same as an earlier group also called Federalists.
The word was used to describe those who supported the new American Constitution. Those who opposed the Constitution were known as anti-Federalists.
Some early Federalists, like Hamilton, later became members of the Federalist Party. They were extremely powerful. They controlled the Congress during the presidency of George Washington. And they almost controlled Washington himself, through his dependence on Alexander Hamilton.
VOICE TWO:
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| Thomas Jefferson |
Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans supported the Constitution as a plan of government. But they did not think the Constitution gave the national government unlimited powers.
They supported policies that helped the nation's farmers and small businessmen. They urged closer ties with the French people, who were rebelling against their king. And they demanded more rights, more democracy, for the people of the United States.
VOICE ONE:
The men who led these two groups were very different.
Alexander Hamilton of the aristocratic Federalists was not born to an established, upper-class American family. He was born in the West Indies to a man and woman who were not married. However, Hamilton was educated in America. And he gained a place in society by marrying the daughter of a wealthy land owner in New York state.
Money and position were important to Hamilton. He believed men of money and position should govern the nation.
Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic Republicans could have been what Alexander Hamilton wanted to be. Through his mother, he was distantly related to British noblemen. And he liked fine food, wine, books, and music.
But Jefferson had great respect for simple farmers and for the men who opened America's western lands to settlement. He believed they, too, had a right to govern the nation.
VOICE TWO:
Both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were loyal Americans. Yet they held completely opposing opinions on how America's government should operate.
Their personal disagreements turned into a public dispute when they served in President Washington's cabinet. The two men did not argue directly in public, however. They fought their war of words in two newspapers.
Both knew the power of the press. Jefferson, especially, felt the need for newspapers in a democracy. He believed they provided the only way for a large population to know the truth. He once said: "If I had to choose between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I would choose newspapers without a government."