Good day, Thomas Jefferson, our podcast listeners. Good to speak with you again.

Hey, oh, everyone. This edition is one close to our hearts because...

Yeah, I hope it's not too dry.

I don't think so. It's about, you know, the dry part is the national bank of the United States,

but the interesting part is that Hamilton and Jefferson were asked by the great George Washington,

the first president to write a memo each, along with two others, about whether a national bank

was constitutional, whether the U.S. Constitution authorized the Congress creating a national

bank of the United States. And Jefferson famously said, no, he's a strict constructionist.

It's not enumerated in the Constitution. And Hamilton said, yes, we can...

The United States, the government can create corporations. There is nothing wrong with that.

And Hamilton said, you want to be a pitiful fourth rank nation that they can only do what,

you know, a bunch of guys who met in Philadelphia say it can do or do you want to be a great nation

that's going to have to make some adjustments and you don't want every time that you want an

adjustment to have to go to the process of a constitutional amendment or a new constitutional

convention. Come on, folks. We need some fundamental good sense and flexibility in this.

Well, it was either you or Jefferson who brought up... I think it was Jefferson who brought up

this complex series of events that Hamilton wanted to...

He wanted three things. He wanted to assume the national debt and pay it off,

including the state debts. That was number one. Number two, he wanted a national banking system

and national bank to coordinate this, which makes a certain kind of sense. And number three,

he wanted to... It's called mercantilism. He wanted to fund infant industry so the United States

could begin to compete with great Britain. And that's what I thought was pretty interesting,

...