With his Protective system he meant to favor one class of industries at the expense of others: thus rallying to the support of the government those who shaped its laws to fill their pockets with the money which belonged to other people.
With his system of Finance, and his National Bank of issue, he meant to form a co-partnership between wealth and government. To the favored few was to be delegated that tremendous power to create currency which had always been a prerogative of the Crown until Barbara Villiers, the harlot, wheedled from the dissolute Charles II. that concession to the bankers.
With his system of Funding the Public Debt, Hamilton meant to mortgage the Nation, in perpetuity, to the wealthy few, in order that they might always hold their power over the masses, and their advantage over the government.
William Pitt is said to have remarked cynically, when he saw our government copying the British system: “Their independence will not do them much good if they adopt our system of finance.”
We all remember how bitterly Jefferson combated the Hamilton measures. We can turn to his writings now, and read the scathing terms in which he denounced them. We can also read his predictions of the evils which would come upon us if we allowed Hamilton’s class-law system to develop.
Haven’t the evils come?
The great historic renown won by the Democratic Party and its leaders was gained in combating this class-law system of Alexander Hamilton.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, always stood in battle array against the Protective System, contending that it was immoral, unjust, oppressive, despoiling the many to enrich the few.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, always went up against the National Banks to fight them, declaring that such an institution was of deadly hostility to the spirit of republican government.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, always clamored against the Funding System, and demanded that the Public Debt be paid off.