History News Network | Jeffersonians Claimed Washington Was Hamilton's Dupe. They Were ... - 0 views
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In the end, Washington belatedly acknowledged Secretary of State Jefferson’s repeated attempts to undermine his policies, and in the final years of his life, he severed all contact with the Sage of Monticello
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Jefferson reciprocated by refusing to attend the memorial service in the nation’s capital after Washington died, despite the fact that he was the sitting Vice President. Jefferson could hardly restrain his glee over the news of Washington’s passing
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Americans should put aside the caricatured account of their early history that pits Jefferson against Hamilton, for Washington was as much a party to this confrontation as Hamilton. Despite his disdain for factions, Washington became the leading Federalist of his time, and his collaboration with Hamilton proved to be the critical alliance of the founding era.
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Conventional wisdom holds that the epic confrontation of the founding era occurred between Hamilton and Jefferson, with Washington somehow floating above it all, when in fact it occurred between Washington and Hamilton on one side and Jefferson and James Madison on the other
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while Washington treated Jefferson with respect and attempted to mediate the Secretary of State’s disputes with Hamilton, he sided repeatedly with Hamilton during his eight years as president. In fact, despite Washington’s distaste for political parties, the Federalist’s party’s “platform” was as much Washington’s as it was Hamilton’s
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For well over two hundred years, Thomas Jefferson and his admirers have had to choose between two unflattering interpretations of George Washington’s presidency. The nation’s first president was either an accomplice in implementing Alexander Hamilton’s “counterrevolutionary” policies or a trusting man who simply did not recognize Hamilton’s ill-intent. Many Jeffersonians embraced the latter position as the more palatable option – better to believe that an elderly, intellectually-challenged Washington was unaware of Hamilton’s schemes than that the “father” of his country was conspiring with a closet monarchist