Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: George Clinton

  • Constitution Sunday: On The Likely Failure Of Liberty, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr., to Governor George Clinton

    Constitution Sunday: On The Likely Failure Of Liberty, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr., to Governor George Clinton

    January 14, 1788

    Daily Advertiser (New York)

    Revising the Articles of Confederation was always going to be a difficult task. The system that the Articles erected was one where the states pulled the strings of a marionette puppet of a federal government; without the states, the federal government was nothing: for instance, although the Confederation Congress could impose a tax, it lacked any independent power of enforcement and would need unanimous approval of the state legislatures. Nonetheless, when delegates met in Philadelphia in a convention that resulted in the draft Constitution, they had originally set out to revise those Articles of Confederation, and, by amendment, to refine the existing system into a more functional, more effective government.

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  • Alexander Hamilton’s Plan for Success

    Portrait of Alexander Hamilton
    Alexander Hamilton in 1792. By: John Trumbull.

    In 1790 and 1791, Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, proposed the creation of a financial system in four reports, which covered the topics of a national bank, a mint, and manufactures. Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, 133. (more…)