Original Intents Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the American Founding

Lucid and concise, Original Intents: Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the American Founding fully explains the political, economic, and constitutional ideas of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison as their thinking developed from the American Revolution through the early 1790s. It shows how their ideas took shape and changed as they engaged with each other and eventually began to have serious debates and arguments. Original Intents shows that there was no single original meaning or intent in the Constitution, and that Hamilton sought to build a Republican United States that was completely incompatible with the Republic that Jefferson and Madison wanted. By the early 1790s, the two Virginians had come to despise Hamilton and detest his vision, and vice versa.

Andrew Shankman is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, Camden.