How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America

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In Praise of How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America

“A thinking American must choose between Hamilton and Jefferson, whose contrary visions of the future were contested in the first days of the Constitution. If you are happy with big government, big banks, big business, big military, and judicial dictatorship, then you have Hamilton to thank. His legacy of nationalism, centralization, crony capitalism, and military adventurism is all around us. If you prefer the Jeffersonian version of an American regime (or even if you don’t) McClanahan’s new book is for you. This is not simply a polemic. McClanahan, who is proving to be one of the ablest truly relevant historians of our time, has given us a definitive, deeply-researched chapter and verse and long perspective of who this bad man was and how he is the fountain of our current discontents.” —CLYDE WILSON, professor of history, emeritus, University of South Carolina

“Brion McClanahan masterfully shows that we live today in Alexander Hamilton’s dream of America―and this is our chief ailment. The national debt, militaristic foreign policy, and expansive powers for the national government can all be traced to the mind and work of Hamilton. But this book is more than just an indictment of the Hamiltonian program. McClanahan points to a forgotten legacy of decentralization and the beauty of small and vibrant self-governing communities. He challenges us to rediscover First Principles championed by Thomas Jefferson, John Taylor of Caroline, and St. George Tucker. In a time of growing nationalism, this book is a must read for every thinking American.”
—WILLIAM J. WATKINS, JR., author of Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution

“Lin-Manuel Miranda?s Hamilton plays up the heroic angle, essentially ignoring its subject?s misdeeds. Brion McClanahan gets straight to the meat of the matter: Alexander Hamilton’s destructive constitutional legacy. It is not a pretty picture. McClanahan shows that Hamilton’s contemporaries realized what his impact would be at the time, and then provides a forceful account of Hamiltonianism’s effects from the Founders’ day to ours. This is essential reading.”
—KEVIN GUTZMAN, American constitutional scholar and historian and professor of history at Western Connecticut State University

“How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America is a must-read book for anyone who wants to know how the American rule of law was transformed into rule by leftist lawyers determined to ignore or destroy all constitutional limits on governmental powers. It was Hamilton and his main disciples, Justices Story, Marshall, and Black, who betrayed the principles of the American founding with such fantasies as ‘implied powers’ of the Constitution. This paved the way for the modern welfare/warfare state which would not exist without Hamilton’s machinations, writes McClanahan. This is the real reason why Alexander Hamilton is the ‘new hero for the left.’ McClanahan exposes Hamilton?s lies, deceptions, and Machiavellian plots to paint a vivid picture of the real Alexander Hamilton.”
—THOMAS DILORENZO, professor of economics, Loyola University Maryland, and author of Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution?and What It Means for Americans Today

“Brion McClanahan is that rarity: an historian who tells the truth. Read his expose of the bird on the ten-dollar bill. Not only will you learn a lot the establishment doesn’t want you to know, you’ll have fun doing it.”
—LEW ROCKWELL, founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute

“Today, we live under crushing taxes and debt. And the central government intrudes into nearly every aspect of society, from defining marriage to policing the length of high school students’ hair. This was not a revolution where the people amended the Constitution. It was a revolution by members of the central government against the Constitution. How was this possible? Brion McClanahan shows how Alexander Hamilton (who described the Constitution as a ‘frail and worthless fabric’) created a strategy later followed by others that enabled the central government to become a self-centralizing machine.”
—DONALD W. LIVINGSTON, professor of philosophy, emeritus, Emory University

“Here’s a rule that will serve you well: whenever a political figure is beloved of all sides, he?s always a scoundrel. Brion McClanahan rips the benign mask off Alexander Hamilton, who is presented in American classrooms as a great hero to celebrate. He is, as Brion shows, one of the original villains in the American story. Set a match to your seventh-grade textbook, and get the real story from How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America.”
—TOM WOODS, New York Times bestselling author and host of The Tom Woods Show