This is the first entry in the new Badlands Media ‘Founders & Foundations’ series.
The name Alexander Hamilton invokes radically different things to different people.
Forces on the left side of the political spectrum often appear to promote a certain version of Alexander Hamilton that conforms to a desire to justify centralized planning and empire.
Other figures on the right have ironically also come to endorse Alexander Hamilton, with Romania’s conservative leader Calin Georgescu describing himself on Tucker Carlson as ‘The Alexander Hamilton of Romania’ on April 10, 2025.
Earlier, Donald Trump had endorsed Hamilton at a press conference in 2017, saying, “I think Hamilton is tough to beat”.
More recently, JD Vance encouraged the restoration of the Hamilton-Clay American System, writing, “The strength of the thread is the strength of the fabric. It’s something we’ve forgotten and remembered, again and again, through the American System, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights Movement.”
So what was Hamilton really?
Among ‘alternative media’ networks, a consensus has formed over the years around the thesis that Hamilton was a Rothschild stooge who’s ‘National Bank’ was actually the forerunner to the later Federal Reserve, and who’s writings in the Federalist Papers justified our modern deep state.
From 2006 to 2012, I became rather obsessed with this paradox and plunged myself into a deep study of original writings of those figures who made the American revolution possible.
During that time, I spent years reading through Hamilton’s writings (specifically his four major reports to Congress of 1791-92 as Washington’s Treasury Secretary), and led workshops on the topic.
After mapping out the policies of the American System of Political Economy which Hamilton created across the next two centuries of history (from Hamilton’s 1804 murder to the present), I noticed a very loud irony:
Quite literally every American president who died while in office by either poison or bullet, were re-activating this Hamiltonian system that revolved around the notion of Constitutional banking shaped by Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution, protective tariffs, and internal improvements.
This included, but was not limited to President John Quincy Adams, Senator Henry Clay, President William Harrison (murdered in 1840), Zachary Taylor (murdered in 1851), Abraham Lincoln (murdered 1865), Secretary of State James Blaine, William Garfield (murdered 1880), William McKinley (murdered 1901), Franklin Roosevelt (murdered by poisoning in 1945), and John F. Kennedy (murdered in 1963).
Additionally, world leaders outside the USA who led their nations to break free of the British imperial systems of control from the 18-20th centuries were frequently also students and practitioners of the Hamiltonian system, which included Russia’s ‘American System’ Foreign Minister Sergey Witte, French President Sadi Carnot, Germany’s Friedrich List, China’s first president Sun Yat-sen and Argentina’s Foreign Minister from 1902-1903, Luis Marie Drago.
I can now say that in my honest assessment, most of what everyone thinks about Hamilton (either those who like him or hate him) have no idea what they are talking about.
Before I jump into my defense of Hamilton, I want to lay out a few points of principle to set the stage…
Some Elementary Principles of Natural Law
While this chapter will review some elementary facts of recent history that provide keys to solving these intellectual and moral obstacles, a few general truths are worth enumerating here, upon which the new economic order must be premised.
A respect of national sovereignty under a win-win system of cooperation and NOT a system of supranational controls under the control of an unelected elite.
Large scale, long term infrastructure projects which uplift the standards of living of all people, as well as the cognitive powers of all people and the productive powers of labor of all people simultaneously.
That this process has the natural effect of increasing national capital and consumer consumption per capita and per square kilometer (since higher quality lives lived longer equates to higher rates and quality of consumption both individually and nationally). A viable modern guidebook to explore this system scientifically can be found in the writings of the late American economist Lyndon LaRouche, with a focus upon his 1984 book, So You Wish to Learn All About Economics.[1]
Taken together, these three variables would tend towards an increase of humanity’s carrying capacity, conditional upon the factor of something ivory tower mathematicians and computer modellers dominant in today’s econometric and climate science worlds detest: HUMAN CREATIVE REASON.
The opposing school of political economy, premised as it is upon the British imperial theoreticians who have sought to undermine this tradition, are premised upon the Malthusian assumption that material limits to nature are insurmountable and that population growth will always exceed nature’s capacity to sustain ever growing mouths. [See Chapter 11 for more on Malthus]
The Role of Creative Thought in Economic Systems
Abraham Lincoln understood this fact all too well 170 years ago, when he said in 1860[2]:
“Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions.”
This idea was amplified by Lincoln’s leading economic advisor Henry C. Carey, who said in his 1872 Unity of Law[3]:
“The more his power of association, the greater is the tendency toward development of his various faculties; the greater becomes his control of the forces of nature, and the more perfect his own power for self-direction; mental force thus more and more obtaining control over that which is material, the labors of the present over the accumulations of the past…”
If you haven’t noticed it, both Lincoln and Carey recognized that it is by increasing rates of discoveries of hither-to-unknown organizing principles of the universe which allows our species to translate those new discoveries into greater rates of scientific and technological progress. This overcoming of our limits to growth by leaping to new technologies and resources would then establish a guiding framework for planning future investments into R & D with a focus on activities that push the frontiers of human knowledge.
This process embodied by Lincoln and Carey was once known far and wide as the “American System,” and it isn’t a coincidence that EVERY SINGLE American president who died while in office (eight in total) were supporters of this system.
The Origins of the American System
During the period of 1783-1791, the newly established American republic was an agrarian economy in financial ruins with no means to pay off its debts or even the soldiers who fought for years in the revolutionary war. It was only a matter of time before the fragile new nation would come undone and be re-absorbed back into the fold of the British Empire.
The solution to this unsolvable crisis was unveiled by Washington’s former Aide de Camp, and now Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who studied the works of the great dirigiste economists like France’s Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert[4], and introduced a four-fold solution:
Consolidate all unpayable state debts into a singular federal debt secured by the issuance of new bonds. This was done via his 1790 Report on Public Credit.
Tie these new bonds to internal improvements like roads, canals, academies and industrial growth, which would create a qualitatively new form of debt that would permit the nation to produce its way out of poverty that would lead to “the augmentation of the active or productive capital of a country”. In this sense Hamilton distinguished bad debt from good debt using the important guiding principle that the “creation of debt should always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment.” [To illustrate this more clearly: think of a farmer taking on a debt in order to feed a gambling addiction vs investing his loan into new farm supplies and a tractor.] The thrust of this conception was found in his Report on the Subject of Manufactures of 1791.
Guide that new national power over finance by a system of national banks subservient to the Constitution and the General Welfare (instead of a system of central banks under the British model that ensured nation states would forever be subservient to the laws of usurious finance). This was illustrated in Hamilton’s 1790 Report on a National Bank, and his 1791 On the Constitutionality of a National Bank.
Use protective measures where necessary to block foreign dumping of cheap goods into the nation from abroad, which essentially makes it more profitable to purchase industrial goods and farm products locally rather than from abroad. Hamilton also promoted federal incentives/bounties to encourage private enterprises to build things that would be in alignment with the national interests.
Hamilton’s idea for the national bank was premised on the unification of private profit with the wellbeing of the whole nation in order to overcome the dichotomy of state vs individual rights, which has plagued so much of philosophy and human history[5].
Describing the importance of a national bank, Hamilton wrote:
“A nation, that has no mines of its own, must derive the precious metals from others; generally speaking, in exchange for the products of its labor and industry. The quantity, it will possess, will therefore, in the ordinary course of things, be regulated by the favourable, or unfavourable balance of its trade; that is, by the proportion between its abilities to supply foreigners, and its wants of them; between the amount of its exportations and that of its importations. Hence the state of its agriculture and manufactures, the quantity and quality [emphasis in the original] of its labor and industry must, in the main, influence and determine the increase or decrease of its gold and silver….
The support of industry is probably in every case, of more consequence towards correcting a wrong balance of trade, than any practicable retrenchments, in the expenses of families, or individuals: And the stagnation of it would be likely to have more effect, in prolonging, than any such savings in shortening its continuance. That stagnation is a natural consequence of an inadequate medium, which, without the aid of Bank circulation, would in the cases supposed, be severely felt.
In opposition to the Jeffersonian crowd promoting British Free Trade and attacking the idea of manufactures or a strong federal government, Hamilton wrote that there is:
“a general principle … inherent in the very definition of Government and essential to every step of the progress to be made by that of the United States; namely—that every power vested in a Government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term, a right to employ all the means requisite, and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power; and which are not precluded by restrictions & exceptions specified in the constitution; or not immoral, or not contrary to the essential ends of political society.”
Hamilton added that this must exist “to give encouragement to the enterprise of our own merchants, and to advance our navigation and manufactures.”
Throughout all of his works, Hamilton is clear that value is not located in land, gold, money, or any arbitrary value favored by followers of the British School like Adam Smith.
In defending the growth of manufactures and internal improvements, Hamilton states in his Report on Manufacturing that:
“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.”
Nancy Spannaus (author of Hamilton vs Wall Street) writes:
“To come to this conclusion, Hamilton rejects the worldview that wealth is measurable in land, or precious metals (including specie), or even power over other nations. Rather, the wealth of the nation is dependent upon the physical economic development of the nation, including, most emphatically, the intellectual capabilities of its population for carrying out that development, more and more efficiently.”
The Overthrow of the American System
Although City of London-affiliated traitors in America like Aaron Burr established the speculative Bank of Manhattan, which started Wall Street, killed Alexander Hamilton in 1804, and derailed many of Hamilton’s grand designs for the young republic, the system was never completely destroyed despite the decades of attempts to do so.
In 1824, the great German economist Frederick List came to America with the last surviving leader of 1776, Marquis Lafayette as part of an international effort to revive the sabotaged plans to create a world of sovereign republics modeled on the American experience of 1776[6].
While this effort failed, with Lafayette’s supplication to the scheme of re-instating a French King in 1830 rather than declare himself the President, List studied Hamilton’s system and was among the first to codify it as the American System of Political Economy in 1827.[7]
In the foreword of this book, List outlines the importance of Hamilton’s system of value, premised upon increasing the productive powers of labor in opposition to the system of Adam Smith:
“I previously knew the importance of means of transportation only from the standpoint taught by the theory of values; I had only observed the effect of transport businesses in particular instances and only with respect to the expansion of the market and the reduction of prices for material goods. Only now did I begin to consider it from the point of view of the theory of productive forces and in its total effect as a national transportation system, consequently, according to its influence upon the entire mental and political life, social intercourse, the productivity and the power of nations. Only now did I recognize the reciprocal relationship which exits between manufacturing power and the national system of transportation, and that the one can never develop to its fullest without the other.
Thus was I able to study this material -- this I dare to claim -- more comprehensively than any other economist before me had done, and to cast a clear light upon the necessity and the utility of entire national systems of railroads, and I did this before any economist in England, France, or North America had thought of considering these matters from this higher standpoint.”
This was the system which List transported to Germany by driving rail development, industrial growth and protectionism under the German Zollverein, which finally blossomed under the rule of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. List’s system was also studied, translated and applied in Russia by many “American System economists,” with the greatest being the Transport Minister and Prime Minister Sergei Witte, who oversaw the trans Siberian railway’s completion and envisioned a line eventually connecting the Americas to Russia via the Bering Straits.[8]
In America, the clash between American vs British Systems defined all major conflicts from 1836 when Andrew Jackson killed the 2nd National Bank (along with thousands of Cherokees) and brought the nation under the heel of British Free Trade, speculation, and cotton plantation economics.
Following the IMF’s protocols that would be imposed onto victim nations 150 years later, Jackson cancelled all internal improvements in order to “pay the debt,” and deregulated the banking system, which resulted in the growth of over 7000 separate currencies issued by an array of state banks, rendering the economy chaotic, bankrupt and prone to mass counterfeiting.
The defenders of the American System during this period (led by Whigs such as John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Henry Clay) played a rear-guard action hoping for an opening to occur at some point. When that opening finally arrived with the victory of Whig President William Harrison in 1840, a glimmer of hope was felt. Harrison swept to power with a mandate to “revive the national bank” and enact Clay’s American System of internal improvements.
Sadly, President Harrison found himself dead in a matter of only 3 months, with legislation for the 3rd national bank sitting unsigned on his desk. Over his dead body (and that of another Whig president only 10 years later), the slave power grew in influence enormously.
It wasn’t until 1861 that a new president arose who successfully avoided assassination attempts long enough to revive Hamilton’s American System during a period of existential crisis of economic bankruptcy and foreign sponsored civil war, which nearly destroyed the Union in ways not that dissimilar to the situation unfolding in America today.
Continue on to Part 2 of the Badlands Media ‘Founders & Foundations’ series, which focuses on Abraham Lincoln.
Badlands Media articles and features represent the opinions of the contributing authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Badlands Media itself.
Matthew Ehret is the editor-in-chief of The Canadian Patriot Review, Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow and Director of the Rising Tide Foundation. He has written the four volume Untold History of Canada series, four volume Clash of the Two Americas series and Science Unshackled: Restoring Causality to a World in Chaos. He is also co-host of The Multipolar Reality on Rogue News and Breaking History on Badlands Media.
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[1] So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics? A Text on Elementary Mathematical Economics by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. New Benjamin Franklin House New York, 1984
[2] Abraham Lincoln on “Discoveries and Inventions” (1860)- republished on American System Now
[3] The Unity of Law; as exhibited in the relations of physical, social, mental and moral science by Carey, Henry Charles, 1793-1879
[4] Writing in “The Continentalist” in 1782, Hamilton said:
"From a different spirit in the government, with superior advantages, France was much later in commercial improvements, nor would her trade have been at this time in so prosperous a condition had it not been for the abilities and indefatigable endeavors of the great Colbert. He laid the foundation of the French commerce, and taught the way to his successors to enlarge and improve it. The establishment of the woolen manufacture, in a kingdom, where nature seemed to have denied the means, is one among many proofs, how much may be effected in favor of commerce by the attention and patronage of a wise administration. The number of useful edicts passed by Louis XIV, and since his time, in spite of frequent interruptions from the jealous enmity of Great Britain, has advanced that of France to a degree which has excited the envy and astonishment of its neighbors.”
[5] One of the greatest resources for any student of history in our modern age who wishes to understand Alexander Hamilton and the system he brought into existence is Nancy Spannaus’ Hamilton versus Wall Street: The Principles of the American System of Economics, Bloomington: iUniverse, 2019
[6] Lafayette: The Tragedy of a Great Moment Meeting a Little People by Pierre Beaudry, October 3, 2008
[7] Outlines of American Political Economy by Friedrich List, Printed by Samuel Parker, Philadelphia, 1827
[8] WHY Russia Saved the United States: The Forgotten History of a Brotherhood by Cynthia Chung, Rising Tide Foundation 2020
Supplementary Resources:
Writings by Hamilton
First Report on Public Credit (1790)
Report on a National Bank (aka: 2nd Report On Public Credit) (1790)
Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791)
On the Constitutionality of a National Bank (1791)
The Federalist Papers no 1 – no 85
Studies about Hamilton
A Matter of Principle: Alexander Hamilton’s Economics Created our Constitution by Nancy Spannaus (EIR, 2010)
In Defense of American Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton by Lyndon LaRouche (EIR, 1987)
How Andrew Jackson Destroyed the United States by Michael Kirsch (EIR, 2012)
The American Credit System 1650-1796 – Class by Michael Kirsch 2011
Who We Are: America’s Fight for Universal Progress vol 1 by Anton Chaitkin
Hamilton developed his ideas in direct response to Adam Smith and the British system. List built on them, Clay tried to bring them in (and partially succeeded), and then the Republicans went all in under Lincoln and Carey.
Republican Party philosophy, which built America into the greatest nation on Earth before WWI, was abandonned under assault from Libertarians. A lot of Republicans today don't even know that the American System and the American School of Economics exist, let alone are the core of Republican and conservative principles.
Trump understood all this intuitively. The globalists hate state sovereignty and the American System. They want slaves and to rule through debt.
Economist Michael Hudson (a Marxist and leftist and Trotsky's godson) has written extensively about the American system and the American school of economics. His politics are stupid but his economic thinking is clear. This is how the Right and the Left can get together and oppose Wall Street, the globalists, and the billionaires, all of whom oppose individual rights and the sovereignty of countries. Occupy and the Tea Party both opposed the globalists. They want to keep everyone divided so that they can exploit and enslave us more.
Great work! I just have one slight observation concerning Alexander Hamilton and his perspective in 1792. Precious metals were imported then and not available here. Our Gold coinage was produced by melting down English, French, or Spanish coins.
This gave Hamilton a different perspective and almost forced him to theorize the value of enterprise. Of course he was absolutely right, but he needed to find something more valuable than Gold to use for his basic foundation.
America today has proven his theory was not wrong, it was totally correct and is no longer a theory. After over two centuries we have proven it to be basis of our value as a society.
Gold as little real value compared to the compounded growth of our country since 1776. We have been under attack by opposing economic systems, but the American System is the one that has withstood the test of time and brought the opposing systems to weaken or fail outright.
Good debt versus bad debt is the key. Today our system is rife with bad debt and it is dragging America down. We pay millions of us not to work by selling Treasury Bonds to generate cash far beyond our tax revenues. That craziness is standard operating procedure in Washington, but America isn’t failing yet. That Hamiltonian free enterprise system is growing at over 8% per year while the overspending is growing at 3% annually. But, that doesn’t make the craziness less insane. It just makes it possible to continue undermining our value.
The good news is we have a President who has not been killed before he could get this correction off of the ground. The Marxists have tried to kill him and may try again. But, the cat is out of the bag. Way too many of us are educated in the truth. Like Iran trying to build Nuclear weapons, killing Trump is just a useless waste of time and money. Why bother? The Golden Age is here and it cannot be stopped.