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North PS 489 – political theory of Hamilton and Jefferson

Write an 8-10 page essay/paper contrasting the political theory of Hamilton and Jefferson and deriving their significance for our understanding of contemporary American political thought. Your essay should have a substantive thesis–that is, it should argue something (“Jefferson shared the vision of the contemporary Democratic party” or “Hamilton’s vision for America is the same one Donald Trump wants to make Great Again” or “Contemporary political movements share little resemblance to the movements that arose from the world Jefferson and Hamilton inhabited,” etc.). This argument should then shape your topic sentences in each paragraph (sub-theses or arguments), which will then be substantiated by selections from the texts (do this often), logical arguments, and other illustrations or evidence.Be sure to include:1. Both thinkers’ “philosophical anthropology” (Federici’s fancy term for their view of human nature, their psychology, and their understanding of what human beings are like and what they can be expected to do.2. Their conception of government. (“republican” or “democratic” or monarchical, etc.) Contextualize them in the history of political thought as they understood it (Federici does this with Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau and a number of others; Sheldon does this with Locke, but also with the historiographical argument over “republican revision”).3. A characterization of their vision for how America should be. Assess this vision based on how the United States has developed. Has one or the other held sway? Does one or the other point to a future America that could be “Great Again” or a need to “Achieve our Country” (as a progressive vision for a future community)?**Emphasize at every opportunity that you read the texts and can USE THE TEXTS to construct effective arguments. This does not mean that you should engage in an empty logic-chopping, but that you can make claims using history, theory, pyschology, rhetoric, and even your knowledge of current events and movements. But remember, it is better to be boring and show you read the texts than to be a genius and talk off the top of your head. “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”–HemingwayText sources are On Tocqueville by Alan Ryan, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson by Garrett Ward Sheldon, and The Political Philosophy of Alexander Hamilton by Michael Federici. Copies of pages from books can be provided if needed or not able to find sources via internet.

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