Many Americans, like Thomas Jefferson, wanted an economy based on farming. But Hamilton was ahead of his time. He believed that the future growth of the US depended on producing and selling goods at home and to other countries.

The paramount problem facing Hamilton was a huge national debt. He proposed that the government assume the entire debt of the federal government and the states. By demonstrating Americans’ willingness to repay their debts, he made the United States attractive to foreign investors.

States’ Debts Hamilton believed that this action would help the federal government. He thought that paying the states’ debts would help the national economy. Debtor states would not have to spend so much on repay- ment and would have money to develop business and trade.

Jefferson’s vision for the United States was that it would become an agrarian nation, composed of white yeoman farmers who owned their own lands. He viewed European societies, especially Great Britain, as corrupt, controlled by moneyed interests and afflicted with the problems that he saw as endemic in urban settings.

This made them less free. But “those who labor in the earth,” Jefferson wrote, “are the chosen people of God.” Jefferson believed that cities were breeding grounds not just for economic and political dependency, but that they generally attracted an urban underclass.

Jefferson’s most fundamental political belief was an “absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority.” Stemming from his deep optimism in human reason, Jefferson believed that the will of the people, expressed through elections, provided the most appropriate guidance for directing the republic’s course.