My teacher gave us a take-home essay a while back and I got an 89 :eek: ... I'd like to do better. I'd appreciate it if I could get some feedback or pointers on how I could improve this essay so I can do better on the next one I do. :)
Prompt:
Compare and Contrast the views and actions of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton while they were members of President Washington’s cabinet.
Although Jefferson and Hamilton were both members of Washington’s cabinet in the United States from 1789 to 1795 and agreed upon the documentation of the Bill of Rights, they had conflicting views on the kind of government they wanted to be governed by and ways to financially stabilize their government.
An indefinite amount of Hamilton and Jefferson’s political debates were due to their disparate perspectives of the Constitution. Hamilton believed that the Constitution was meant to grow and bend to the expanding country, and be interpreted loosely. However, Jefferson took a different standpoint. He believed that the Constitution means exactly what it says, and it should not be bent to the government’s wishes to accommodate for anything they want – it would lead to an overbearing government, taking away from state power and rights’, thus a strict interpretation. For example, Hamilton and Jefferson’s support on the French Revolution, Hamilton believed the French were rebelling for no apparent reason and should side with Britain. Jefferson, on the other hand, regarded the “rebelling” with indifference and believed that the United States should remain neutral; they could not afford to have a back-to-back war financially.
After the American Revolution, the United States was in severe financial debt. Hamilton suggested the Bank of the United States to assist in the ridding of the United States’ large debt and create a stronger central government. Believing it to be unconstitutional and taking power away from the states, Jefferson opposed the idea of a national bank. Hamilton believed the United States should pay back their debt slowly and develop credit with other nations, securing foreign alliances, despite Jefferson’s plan of paying the debt back all at once, and having no debt at all. Washington, having to decide upon a plan that would be best for the country as a whole, chose to build a Bank of the United States. Hamilton then devised a plan that involved creating tariffs such as the Whiskey Tariff and the Protective Tariff to help generate a foundation to begin clearing the American debt. Jefferson, as expected, was against tariffs altogether, and firmly believed that they should not be used because it created a more established central government.
Through all the differences and arguments, however, Hamilton and Jefferson were able to come to a few compromises. As the Federalist had guaranteed the Anti-Federalists, they wrote and established the Bill of Rights in 1791, properly protecting natural rights’ of men, and settling some of the Anti-Federalist worries of a tyrannical centralized government. Most of the differences between the rich and poor, or rather the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, had dwindled away and were almost equivalent in social stature. Even though Jefferson and Hamilton had opposing viewpoints on how the United States should be governed, in the end, they had come to a compromise through all the disagreements; they created a central government, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
I know I don't have a conclusion ... I ran out of space on the 1 sided piece of paper she gave us ... and I know it's not exactly in an "organized" pattern as my teacher puts it. >.< I didn't really realize that until after I turned it in and was thinking about it. :o Anyway, please feel free to rip it up and spit it back out at me, I'm used to it by now. :p
Thank you,
~Heph
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