James Madison v. Alexander Hamilton

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'll take democracy and the Bill of Rights over quasi-monarchism and the Alien & Sedition Acts, thanks. Going to war in 1812 was a bad decision, but considering Hamilton wanted an equally unnecessary war in 1798, I'd say the two break even on the "bad foreign policy decision" front.

Hamilton as a Federalist who tried to create nationalized systems was the opposition. It's a natural he's the one the big government types like.

I'd be careful about making that assumption. As a general rule of thumb, policies of centralization are adopted as a means to an end, not as ends in and of themselves. This, after all, is why Jefferson adopted many Hamiltonian interpretations of the Constitution upon assuming office, why John C. Calhoun abandoned his early nationalistic views for a doctrine of nullification, and why Southerners saw no contradiction in supporting both the Fugitive Slave Act and states' rights. For Hamilton and his allies, the strength of the central government served to guarantee the prosperity of the business and financial interests, a goal modern-day liberals hardly share.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Hamilton by a country mile, and one reason, little known, is Madison's role in keeping slavery legal in the US at the one moment when it might have been abolished.

According to that article, though, it's not clear anything would have come of this, besides the southern states splitting off from the Union (and thus preserving slavery, in practice, for several more decades than in original history). This is the tricky thing about the politics of slavery in the Early Republic: yes, the Northern states had the votes to abolish slavery on paper, but prior to 1850 they lacked the power to impose abolition by the bayonet, which was the only way it was ever going to happen. If your first priority is to expunge the federal government of culpability, then this isn't an issue, but if you're motivated by a desire to actually end slavery, it makes things considerably more complicated.