Happy Birthday, Mr. President (Jefferson)

Everyone loves Alexander Hamilton these days. The “ten dollar founding father without a father” is, shockingly, super trendy these days.

The musical – a rapping version of the life and time of founding father Alexander Hamilton penned by certified MacArthur genius Lin-Manuel Miranda – is beyond a sensation.  Tickets are sold out until almost the end of time, the ones that you can buy for the distant future are preposterously expensive, and their fanbase has officially given themselves a nickname (Hamiltrash). Heck, even the President and First Lady love Hamilton.

And while the “Hamilton” musical has as of yet not had a chance to collect all the Tony awards, its effects are being felt throughout the land, even outside of the more rarified circles of theater geeks and musical theater lovers. The United States Treasury department loves Hamilton so much — or is at least sufficiently terrified of Hamilton’s dangerously fanatical fan base — that it has decided that maybe the $10 bill doesn’t actually need a woman on the front. The back will do right? (For the record, Lin-Manuel Miranda did support leaving Hamilton as the $10 founding father, but suggested evicting Andrew Jackson from his spot on the $20).

We at PYMNTS couldn’t he happier about all the Hamilton love, since we’ve been Hamilton fans since way before it was cool. And not the musical — but the guy, long before Broadway asked the question “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman …. Grow up to be a hero and a scholar.” You heard us ask it here first.

For real.

And while we are happy that Alexander finally got his singing, dancing monument as the anniversary of the birth of another Founding Father passed this week, we thought that the recent outpouring of Hamilton love might just have a less remarked up casualty than the prospect of gender equality on our currency.

Everybody is starting to hate our third President, Thomas Jefferson. Because – fair or not – once the British are defeated in Act I, Thomas Jefferson is the villain for much of Act II, starting with his impassioned critique of the bank (and the financial system) that Hamilton is arguing the nation needs to build.

And as this week marked the 273 anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, we thought it might be fair to ask: Does Jefferson deserve his bum rap?

(Get it? Because Hamilton is a rap opera? Whatever, maybe there’s a reason no one gave us the genius grant.)

Well as all things, the answer is a little bit yes — and a little bit no.

Thomas Jefferson Legitimately Hated Banks

Those with a short historical memory might see Bernie Sanders and think “look, a wild-haired idealist who hates big banks — how novel.”

Those people would be wrong since, long before anyone was feeling the Bern, Thomas Jefferson was throwing shade.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. … The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs,” President Jefferson wrote to his Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin in 1803.

Unlike Sanders, however, Jefferson also rather fully hated the idea of a central bank with the power to take on sovereign debt, which he viewed as an attempt to force Northern debts on Southern states that didn’t have them.

Or, as “Hamilton” (the play) summarizes it:

“In Virginia, we plant seeds in the ground

We create. You just wanna move our money around

This financial plan is an outrageous demand.”

History responded to that much the same way as the musical’s imagined Hamilton — Jefferson’s commitment to a non-capitalistic economy and a non-federalized system with 13 independent republics built on mostly agrarian ideals is predicated on the ability to build an agrarian system where you don’t pay for any labor at all.

“If we assume the debts, the union gets

A new line of credit, a financial diuretic

How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive

The union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative?

A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey neighbor

Your debts are paid cuz you don’t pay for labor

‘We plant seeds in the South. We create.’

Yeah, keep ranting

We know who’s really doing the planting.”

But it should be noted, in Jefferson’s defense, that Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was an avid opponent of banking in pretty much all forms — especially the large, central federal version. Thomas Jefferson the president, on the other hand, was just fine with the Bank of the United States (Hamilton won that historical argument) when it came time to make the Louisiana Purchase.

Jefferson The Innovator

While it is easy enough to rag on Jefferson — especially given how right it turned out Alexander Hamilton was when it came to the future of the American economy — it is still, we think, a mistake to overlook how much he contributed to the American mindset that apart from the very impressive banking system is also the nation that brought the world personal computers, iPhones and cars.

Because Thomas Jefferson was the first great American Innovator.

Well, OK, Jefferson or Ben Franklin — we think the two of them could have a reasonable horse race here. But in either case, Jefferson has the winning quote that explains the mindset of every American innovator from Henry Ford to Bill Gates and beyond.

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 that it was self-evident that all men were created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn’t strike us as all that impressive, because we believe it to be self-evident because Thomas Jefferson convinced us. In 1776 those truths were far from self-evident. Europe was ruled by Kings (and Americans owned slaves) exactly because the idea of natural equality was far from evident to anyone.

And though Thomas Jefferson did not live up to the potential of his own ideals, well then that is kind of the way we’ve since learned innovation goes. The first iPhone was far from as capable as the smartphones that now sell for less than $50 on Alibaba. The first car went less than 30 miles an hour at top speed and needed a driver! Between the writing of the words “All men are created equal” and the election of the first black president, 232 years passed, with a horrible Civil War marking the halfway point between those events.

Mobile payments were totally alien and pointless seeming when the first introduced. Now, OK, well like we said, innovation is a journey.

So should you ever get those eTickets to “Hamilton,” remember that through narrative Jefferson is the bad guy — that’s more a function of dramatic arc than history. Jefferson may have been crazily wrong about banks, but he was also the guy who’s taught generations of American innovators that it doesn’t matter if everyone else can’t see the future yet, because they can.

Happy belated birthday, President Jefferson.