Feuding Fathers: The Competing Economic Visions of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson

If one were to go to Virginia today and visit Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson, they would find a building that resembles a museum more so than a home. Inside are paintings, maps, sculptures and even the antlers of many great beasts. But the first thing that will come to a visitor's sight aren’t these wonders, but rather the busts of two men that glare at each other at the entrance of the home. One stands on a pedestal, large and draped in cloth, the other a simple marble statue of a younger man. The former statue depicts Monticello’s owner and the latter is of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton . One may find this curious, as the two didn’t have a friendship and were often thought of as the cause for the United States becoming a two-party system, due to their disagreements. For Thomas Jefferson the placement of these busts seemed natural as it put him into eternal combat with a man he considered his main political rival.
These two men could not have had more different upbringings; Thomas Jefferson was born to a wealthy family that owned land and slaves, whereas Alexander Hamilton was born on a Caribbean island in poverty, only to be orphaned early on in his life . Despite these differences both men found a common goal in fighting for independence for the American colonies. Jefferson would do so as a diplomat and author of the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton would be a patriot through being a soldier and assistant to General George Washington. Once the war was over, the two continued their service to the country and would find themselves as the first heads of the United States’ cabinet departments. By being in Washington’s cabinet, the two came in conflict with one another frequently on the policy of the time such as the country’s neutrality in foreign affairs. No issue put them more in conflict than their stances on the country’s economic state.