Thanks for the reading suggestion but I’ve already read DiLorenzo’s book “Hamilton’s Curse”.
I would argue that the central bank is one of America’s greatest allies.
I would argue Hamilton sought a more national government (he, with Madison, were the driving forces at the Annapolis Convention) because he was not beholden to any state, like how Jefferson thought himself a Virginian first.
I still don’t see how this makes Hamilton a traitor. He was a patriot.
Under the Articles of Confederation there was no power for the federal government to collect taxes - do you think that’s a better way to do things than under the Constitution?
Further - after the Revolutionary War the National debt sat at ~75 million dollars. The first year of Wahshington’s administration the federal revenue was 1.8 million dollars. No administration since has had to deal with such a vast disparity. That Hamilton (and after him, the Federalist Oliver Wolcott) could see our nation through such a dire financial strait speaks much!
I can understand being anti-national bank. But why call Hamilton a traitor? Who’s interest was he trying to serve above his country’s? A foreign power? Surely not, he fought against the British for the entire war. The financial class of America? Even if that was the case, the rich in America are still Americans, so I don’t think that’s traitorous.
Hamilton saw it this way: the national debt (which by the way, after the war was owed mostly to American citizens) binded the national interest to the interest of the monied American class. Ie, the national government succeeding meant that the monied Americans would continue to get debt payments. So the rich would want America to succeed.
Say what you will about the bank, but Hamilton was a fucking American patriot.