Alexander Hamilton – an Economic Genius

John Steele Gordon for the past 20 years has been a very highly experienced specialist in the business field. As well as being an author of many scholarly books, he was a contributing editor to American Heritage, written by John Steele Gordon. The argument that is discussed is that Alexander is an economic genius which Hamilton provides evidence by sharing that he created the conflicts of the debts in the nation. More focusing on the Confederation side and the state governments. The Bank of the United States was also founded by Hamilton. With all of the success Hamilton has put into the economy it is assumed that is the reason why the economics in today’s society is well advanced. All of the achievements that Hamilton has made would make you assume that he is an economic genius, but there are others who will portray a different side and argue that he is not.

Alexander Hamilton has an extraordinary adult life, but his childhood was not as nearly admirable as with the events that occurred during that time period in his life. Hamilton wrote a number of articles for what we call now the Constitution. He is known as George Washington’s secretary because of all his contributions that he added. All of Alexander’s supporters argued that the organization he had prepared for The Bank of the United States were highly important. The ones who disagree with Alexander’s being known as a genius think that he added way too much to the constitution and involved himself with the economy more than he should have.

Unlike the other founding fathers Hamilton was not born in the United States like the other republicans. With the battle of Great Britain and the American colonies, given that Hamilton was born in the West Indian Island in Nevis, he gave a lot to his new country. With Hamilton’s intense talents he was recommended for the position as being the “financer of the Revolution” by Morris, one of his partners he worked with for several years. Morris knew that for the intent of making money Hamilton was the one who was going to lead the country in the path of success.

As we know the Revolution caused a lot of debt for the United States because of the old national government. Hamilton replaced this debt by having revenue come into play which helped out the United States tremendously. The main argument was over who would get the benefit from all of the refunding Hamilton was putting into place. Most of the debt was in the form of bonds which then fell into the hands of the wealthy merchants that were from the bigger cities. These merchants had gotten these bonds which were far below face value, even as low as ten percent of its face value.

Hamilton has stated that there are three major purposes to a central bank. One of them is that it takes the government funds, transfers it to the bank from one part of the country to the other. It is a very high source of loans to the government and then to other banks which causes there to be regulation for the money supply.

Hamilton was against the idea of the government issuing paper money because of the self-discipline that was inside the government. Hamilton didn’t trust the internal specialists who were the ones dealing with the money. There was no evidence that the Continental Congress had the self-discipline when it came time for them to spend money. Hamilton had the idea that an independent central bank could supply more than just an exchange of discipline but to keep the money. If there were notes that were issued that were redeemable into gold or silver because they were so high in demand it was easier for the government to pay off the taxes that were owed which then fixed the issue of the shortage of cash that was occurring. When the central bank would refuse the notes that came from the state banks that were not going smoothly no one else was allowed to take them either. In result of this action, it supplied discipline to those banks as well as the state bank.

In the 1780s, the United States had been a financial disaster but Hamilton’s program quickly converted the country’s financial circumstances. Unexpectedly, by 1794 it had the highest credit rating in Europe because some of the bonds were selling above their percentage. According to Hamilton, The United States bonds were safe and free from revenues. They have been funded in a great manner and the prosperity of this country is growing so quick that there is no reason for their solvency. By 1801 the Europeans had $33 million in The United States securities, and the European capital was helping build the American economy extremely.

In conclusion, one can say, yes Alexander Hamilton is an economic genius because of how intelligent of a man he was. Alexander had a planned-out sketch of what he wanted to do for the United States as a whole to make the economy the best it could be. From his rough past as a child you can see the clear outlook that he wanted to give to others as just being a giving person. He wanted to use his smarts for the best thing he could to make a difference in the best scenario possible.