The Founding Wizard
Two hundred years ago the United States was a weakling republic prostrate beneath a ruinous national debt. Then Alexander Hamilton worked the miracle of fiscal imagination that made America a healthy young economic giant. How did he do it?
July/august 1990 | Volume 41, Issue 5
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EmailAfter his untimely death in 1804 at the hands of Aaron Burr, Hamilton was buried in New York’s Trinity Churchyard, across Broadway from the head of Wall Street. At the turn of the nineteenth century, it was nothing more than a picturesque spot in the most fashionable residential area of a small seaport, and it lay remote from the centers of world power. Today the churchyard, surrounded by skyscrapers, hurtling traffic, and hurrying pedestrians, lies at the very heart of world capitalism. It is altogether fitting that Hamilton should rest there still.
On the grave of Sir Christopher Wren in the transept of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, are engraved the words Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice (“If you seek a monument, look about you”). Those same words, with equal justice, might be written on the tomb of Alexander Hamilton.
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Why do we need a national nonprofit membership society for American history?
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“Save America’s Treasures” has been totally eliminated—the largest Federal program supporting preservation of such treasures as the original Star Spangled Banner and George Washington’s tent.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
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40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.
