Alexander Hamilton and the persistence of myth / Stephen F. Knott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knott, Stephen F.

Series:

American political thought

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804--Influence.

Hamilton, Alexander.

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804--Public opinion.

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804.

Public opinion--United States.

Public opinion.

United States.

United States--Politics and government--Philosophy.

Politics and government.

Philosophy.

National characteristics, American.

Statesmen--United States--Biography.

Statesmen.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 336 pages ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Alexander Hamilton & the persistence of myth

Place of Publication:

Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2002]

Summary:

Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth explores the shifting reputation of our most controversial founding father. Since the day Aaron Burr fired his fatal shot, Americans have tried to come to grips with Alexander Hamilton's legacy. Stephen Knott surveys the Hamilton image in the minds of American statesmen, scholars, literary figures, and the media, explaining why Americans are content to live in a Hamiltonian nation but reluctant to embrace the man himself.

Knott observes that Thomas Jefferson and his followers, and, later, Andrew Jackson and his adherents, tended to view Hamilton and his principles as "un-American." While his policies generated mistrust in the South and the West, where he is still seen as the founding plutocrat, Hamilton was revered in New England and parts of the mid-Atlantic states. Hamilton's image as a champion of American nationalism caused his reputation to soar during the Civil War, at least in the North. However, in the wake of Gilded Age excesses, progressive and populist political leaders branded Hamilton as the patron saint of Wall Street, and his reputation began to disintegrate.

Hamilton's status reached its nadir during the New Deal, Knott argues, when Franklin Roosevelt portrayed him as the personification of Dickensian cold-heartedness. When FDR erected the beautiful Tidal Basin monument to Thomas Jefferson and thereby elevated the Sage of Monticello into the American pantheon, Hamilton, as Jefferson's nemesis, fell into disrepute. He came to epitomize the forces of reaction contemptuous of the "great beast" -- the American people. In showing how the prevailing negative assessment misrepresents the man and his deeds, Knott argues for reconsideration of Hamiltonianism, which if rightly understood has much to offer the American polity of the twenty-first century.

Remarkably, at the dawn of the new millennium, the nation began to see Hamilton in a different light. Hamilton's story was now the embodiment of the American dream -- an impoverished immigrant who came to the United States and laid the economic and political foundation upon which America's superpower status was erected. Here in Stephen Knott's insightful study, Hamilton fainally gets his due as a highly contested but powerful and positive presence in American national life.

Contents:

"And night returning brings me no relief": Hamilton and the founding generation

Hamilton and the Jacksonian era: the monster bank and the coming of war

Hamilton rises again: Civil War and his vindication

Hamilton's gilded age: his renaissance

The twilight of Hamiltonianism: 1901-1928

Slouching toward oblivion: Hamilton as the new deal's great beast

Hail Columbia! Hamilton and Cold War America

At century's end: a Hamilton restoration on the horizon?

Getting right with Hamilton: "the public good must be paramount."

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-321) and index.

ISBN:

0700611576

OCLC:

47767164