Question

Read the passages from Thomas Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791 and Alexander Hamilton’s Opinion as to the Constitutionality of a National Bank of the United States, 1791. Access the documents here.

Explain each man's position, and analyze how these arguments related to the growing debate on the authority of the federal government during Washington's presidency.

Answer 1

Thomas Jefferson's position was that he thought charter banks could issue money. He interpreted the Constitution of not having that much power to grant the Nation to run a national bank and believed it was inherently unconstitutional. He believed that having a national bank would ignore the needs of farmers and small individuals. He thought it would violate the tenth amendment. Alexander Hamilton's position was that he wanted to use the federal government to promoted economical development, which in this case he had a national bank as one of the ways that he wanted to promote this development. He had the support of the North because it was manufacturing and industrialist are but did not have the support of the south as they still wanted to utilize slaves for their benefit. These arguments related to the growing debate on the federal government was reflected during Washington's presidency as Jefferson and Hamilton had differing values when it came to the 1791 bill on whether or not to have a national bank. Hamilton was all for it but Jefferson opposed it. This had shown that the nation was growing further apart as northers and Hamilton wanted economic development, but people like Jefferson believed it was not beneficial. It imposed the question of that does congress really have that much authority to grant such ideals or is it violating the constitution. This also put in the thought that the constitution was now up to interpretation. This also imposed the question of the balance of power between states and federal government.

Answer 2

The correct answer to this open question is the following.

You did not attach the link to the passages. However, doing some research we can comment on the following.

Among the many differences, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had, one of the most notorious was the issue of the National bank of the United States.

During the presidency of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, believed in the necessity of having a national bank. On the other hand, Antifederalist Thomas Jefferson considered that this would give the government too much power and could generate a monopoly that affected private banks in the country.

The situation increased in tension when Thomas Jefferson declared that the national bank was anticonstitutionalists because the United States Constitution never mentioned that the federal government had the power to create one.

The response of Hamilton was immediate. He stated that the bank indeed was constitutional because the US Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money, borrow it, collect taxes, and also regulate national and foreign trade.