Talk:Alexander Hamilton/Archive 3

message: The following, from the Independent Chronicle (Boston), 16 October 1797 quoted in Carol Sue Humphrey, The Revolutionary Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1776 to 1800 (2003) p, 260
*ASK—who lies here beneath this monument? 
*L o!—’tis a self created MONSTER, who 
*E mbraced all vice. His arrogance was like 
*X erxes, who flogg’d the disobedient sea, 
*A dultery his smallest crime; when he 
*N obility affected. This privilege 
*D ecreed by Monarchs, was to that annext. 
*E nticing and entic’d to ev’ry fraud,
*R enounced virtue, liberty and God. 
*H aunted by whores—he haunted them in turn 
*A ristocratic was this noble Goat 
*M onster of monsters, in pollution skill’d 
*I mmers’d in mischief, brothels, funds & banks 
*L ewd slave to lust,—afforded consolation; 
*T o mourning whores, and tory-lamentation. 
*O utdid all fools, tainted with royal name; 
*N one but fools, their wickedness proclaim.
is amusing; but quoting collections of primary sources is still original research. Put it in Wikisource. Septentrionalis 17:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Something can be original research without being an invertion. Septentrionalis 18:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ive taken my own suggestion; wikisource:Doggerel against Alexander Hamilton. Septentrionalis 18:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Pmanderson mixes up original research (not allowed) and primary documents (allowed). In this case a scholar (Humphrey) did all the original research (in newspapers of 1790s) and published the results in a secndary book, which I used. the Wiki rule is "Wikipedia articles may use primary sources only if they have been published by a reliable publisher e.g. trial transcripts published by a court stenographer, or historic documents that appear in edited collections." --and the doggerel ceratinly qualifies. from Wikipedia:Reliable sources Rjensen 18:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The importance of the poem is that is shows the issues that were in fact raised against Hamilton and the quality of the debate. The quote follows Wiki standards and presents primary documents in a way that users at all educational elevles can handle. Many of the sources on the press are cited at First Party System. Rjensen 07:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But if we presented every supporting primary document the article would be thousands upon thousands of pages long -- I'm tempted to throw the text of a few of the Federalist Papers in there to support a few points. The statement that atacks were made against Hamilton can be made without the presence of a supporting primary source, just like all the other claims in the article. It should be cited to a SECONDARY source because the characterizations made cannot be established by primary sources. BTW I just realized I used the automatic revert, an error for which I apologize. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Nobody is inserting thousands of pages here--just a few lines of poetry that show very clearly the tone of the rhetoric of the 1790s and the main charges his enemies were making. To make space I deleted a useless poem that was included in the article. As for the Fed papers, they are all online and easy to link to. This article lacks a serious analysis of AH's ideas in them. Rjensen 17:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only thing this poem shows clearly is that once, Alexander Hamilton was attacked in a newspaper. It doesn't demonstrate the main charges his enemies were making, it demonstrates the main charges this particular enemy made in this particular poem. There's no secondary source supporting the idea that this poem was typical on such attacks -- indeed, despite my request you've provided no secondary sources attesting to anything about these newspaper attacks. Compared to the length of other quotes in the article this quote is huge, and giving it pride of place is a bad idea when it's relative importance is exceedingly low. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doggerel

message: On the request for secondary sources on the tone of newspaper rhetoric, here's a good example:
AH Biographer Miller says this: "it was [editor] Freneau's particular delight to rake Hamilton over the coals and to watch his reputation go up in smoke. In describing the iniquities of Alexander Hamilton, the Poet of the Revolution abused both his poetic and journalistic license. Freneau seemed to have imagined that he was fighting the American Revolution over again, this time with Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist party in the place of George III and the Tories." [Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox p. 344] 
Here's another account: 
"It was with the newspaper editors, however, on both sides that a climax of rancorous and venomous abuse was reached. Of the Federalist editors, the most voluminous masters of scurrility were William Cobbett of Porcupine's Gazette and John Ward Fenno of the United States Gazette, at Philadelphia; Noah Webster of the American Minerva, at New York; and at Boston, Benjamin Russell of the Columbian Centinel, Thomas Paine of the Federal Orrery, and John Russell of the Boston Gazette. 
Chief of these was Cobbett, whose control of abusive epithet and invective may be judged from the following terms applied by him to his political foes, the Jacobins: "refuse of nations"; "yelper of the Democratic kennels"; "vile old wretch"; "tool of a baboon"; "frog-eating, man-eating, blooddrinking cannibals"; "I say, beware, ye under-strapping cut-throats who walk in rags and sleep amidst filth and vermin; for if once the halter gets round your flea-bitten necks, howling and confessing will come too late." 
Cobbett wrote of the "base and hellish calumnies" propagated by the Jacobins, and of "tearing the mask from the artful and ferocious villains who, owing to the infatuation of the poor, and the supineness of the rich, have made such fearful progress in the destruction of all that is amiable and good and sacred among men." Among the milder examples of his description of Jacobins was the following: "Where the voice of the people has the most weight in public affairs, there it is most easy to introduce novel and subversive doctrines. In such States too, there generally, not to say always, exists a party who, from the long habit of hating those who administer the Government, become the enemies of the Government itself, and are ready to sell their treacherous services to the first bidder. To these descriptions of men, the sect of the Jacobins have attached themselves in every country they have been suffered to enter. They are a sort of flies, that naturally settle on the excremental and corrupted parts of the body politic. . . . The persons who composed this opposition, and who thence took the name of Anti-Federalists, were not equal to the Federalists, either in point of riches or respectability. They were in general, men of bad moral characters embarrassed in their private affairs, or the tools of such as were. Men of this caste naturally feared the operation of a Government embued with sufficient strength to make itself respected, and with sufficient wisdom to exclude the ignorant and wicked from a share in its administration." [Jacobin and Junto by Charles Warren (1931) pp 90-91.] 
Rjensen 18:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These sources would be infinitely more useful to a reader than the primary document, although you went above and beyond in actually transcribing such lengthy quotes. Hopefully you are satisfied with the section as it is after your latest edit, as I think it is pretty good. Cheers, Christopher Parham (talk) 18:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: CHRIS--A CONFESSION: I cut and pasted from Questia.com, a terrific resource.  Section is good but let's add a few more lines of poetry to show the charges that were used. Rjensen 18:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newspaper rhetoric 

message: What was Hamilton's role in establishing the Navy?  My understanding was that John Adams was much more decisive in its founding.  (I could be wrong.)  Eddieuny 15:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most people give Adams credit for the navy; Hamilton did found the coast guard (as a Treasury operation). 
Rjensen 15:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: United States Navy

message: I dispute the addition of "monarchist" to "Hamilton was deeply committed to the principles of republicanism". (The sentence to which it is added could use work, but that's another question.) This would, in context, imply that the Federalist expressed monarchism, which is a novel claim. So is the existence of monarchist republicanism in the first place.
Hamilton gave a single monarchist speech to the Convention; but he was committed to the experiment in republicanism (for the US, not elsewhere). He did not prefer it, as the article says; and he lost faith in it after the election of Jefferson, as the article should say and does not. Septentrionalis 02:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He also defended it as late as Federalist Paper #69.  The article has been adjusted. Skyemoor 03:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that's much better. Septentrionalis 22:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Monarchist