Jefferson vs. Hamilton: Confrontations that shaped the Nation
Thomas Jefferson was born in affluence to his father, Peter Jefferson, a rising young planter in the Virginia colony, and his mother, Jane Randolph, who held a high status within the colony as well. Due to his father’s prosperity Jefferson was afforded the absolute best in the ways of education, starting with private tutors at the age of five, then moving on to learn how to read Greek and Roman and finally taking his studies to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg which he would say is “…what probably fixed the destinies of my life…” (5). On the other side of the spectrum, Alexander Hamilton son of James Hamilton, a Scotsman of a well-known family but never flourished on his own, and his mother, Rachel Fawcett Lavien, who had left her husband to live with James Hamilton. Hamilton’s early life was just that his father “drifted away” and his mother passed in 1768. Lacking wealth, Hamilton’s educational opportunities in his young life were nonexistent; however this did not stop him from gaining a vast knowledge of business and finance that he would later on use in his services to President George Washington.
In addition to these politically influential men’s different early lives, they have their differences in opinions. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were not just on different issues that shaped the nation, but they were at the head of those differences. Jefferson distrusted the federal government, which he saw was invading individual liberty, while Hamilton distrusted the people; Jefferson saw American as agrarian, while Hamilton saw it as industrious, and while Jefferson fought for strict interpretation of the constitution, Hamilton favored loose implied powers. Alexander Hamilton was a man who represented the Federalists. Thomas Jefferson was a man who represented the