In some ways, Hamilton was even more an archetypal new American than Washington, since Hamilton was a bright and ambitious immigrant who had been raised in extreme poverty in the West Indies and who was sent to America by people who saw his potential. While attending college in New York City, he was swept up in the revolutionary fervor for American liberty, organized his own artillery unit, impressed Washington with his bravery and -- because he was fluent in French -- became an important intermediary to the French allies. At his request, he also led the final American bayonet charge in the decisive Battle of Yorktown.
Though Hamilton's home was in New York, his allegiance was to the new country, not to any particular state, which made him a source of suspicion in the eyes of Thomas Jefferson and other early leaders who were anchored in their home states or their "countries," as they put it.
Besides his perceived rootless origins and his self-made rise from poverty, Hamilton was disdained for his hatred of slavery, which he despised because he had witnessed its abuses firsthand in the West Indies. He offended Virginia slaveholders with his foot-dragging over their demands that the new government pursue compensation from Great Britain for freeing many of their slaves, an issue that Secretary of State Jefferson pressed aggressively.
During George Washington's presidency, Hamilton acted as what we might call "Washington's Brain," hatching plan after plan for implementing the new government but also making many tough decisions that offended the Federalists' political enemies. As the point man for Washington's government, Hamilton also became the target of well-financed political attacks, some hatched secretly by Jefferson who emerged as the leader of the Anti-Federalist coalition, based in the South but drawing strength from Hamilton's political rivals in New York.
Through these bitter battles, Washington generally backed Hamilton but sought to remain above the fray. Washington's executive genius -- as displayed as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, as president of the Constitutional Convention and as the first U.S. President -- was always less his personal brilliance than his ability to select talented subordinates, to delegate authority and to incorporate the opinions of others into his final decisions.
As historically important as Washington was as "the father of the nation," he was a leader who didn't let his personal ego dominate his actions. Though Jefferson and other critics of a strong central government were quick to accuse the Federalists of "monarchism" and allege that they secretly wanted to appoint a king, Washington set the standard for limiting personal power by leaving the presidency after two terms.
When Washington did step down, the new nation was off to a promising start, having put the government's finances in order and dodging efforts to draw America in on the side of either Great Britain or France in their renewed fighting. Washington also set what could have become another important precedent by using his will to free his slaves.
One of the Worst: Thomas Jefferson
To understand why I consider Thomas Jefferson, the third president and one of four faces on Mount Rushmore, one of the worst, you first have to separate Jefferson's words from his actual beliefs and actions.
Many Americans and historians regard Jefferson favorably because of his role as the key drafter of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, expressing some of the Revolutionary War's most radical and noble sentiments, particularly that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Yet, Jefferson didn't believe any of that. Not only was he a major slaveholder in Virginia -- having slave boys as young as 10 whipped if they didn't work hard enough and apparently imposing himself sexually on at least one and possibly more slave girls -- Jefferson wrote and stated that he considered blacks inferior to whites, somewhat comparable to orangutans.
Jefferson was also a hypocrite when he lectured his fellow Americans on the need for frugality and the evils of debt -- while he pampered himself with luxuries and amassed personal debts far greater than he could sustain, which led him to further brutalize his slaves for profit.
And, he was a "chicken hawk," writing cavalierly about the blood of patriots and tyrants fertilizing the tree of liberty, but running away from battles at Richmond and Charlottesville when he was Virginia's governor during the Revolutionary War.
Yet, without doubt, Jefferson was a brilliant propagandist, deploying words both to fortify his own positions and to tear down the defenses of his enemies. In the 1790s, he mounted one of the most effective political campaigns in U.S. history against the Federalists, as they struggled to establish the new government under the Constitution. He secretly funded vicious newspaper attacks, particularly against Treasury Secretary Hamilton and President John Adams.
Yet, Jefferson's most long-lasting and pernicious deception was his reinterpretation of the Constitution, which he had virtually no input in writing because he was in Paris as the American representative to France in 1787. But Jefferson's dodgy wordsmithing -- as he recast the Constitution's meaning -- had almost a modern-day feel to it. Rather than seek to change the new governing document through the amendment process, Jefferson simply asserted that the words didn't mean what they said.
The Constitution's Article I, Section 8 empowered the federal government to "provide for the common Defense and the general Welfare of the United States" and gave Congress the authority "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers." But Jefferson proclaimed his own principle of "strict construction," declaring that Congress only could exercise the specific powers, e.g., coining money, building post offices, etc., as listed in Article I, Section 8.
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