Praxis II Citizenship

Answer: A - At the dawn of the republic, Alexander Hamilton’s financial plans did not provide for nullifying private debts. Hamilton was a staunch Federalist, and he wanted the federal government to hold as much power as possible, which included assuming as much financial responsibility for the nation’s affairs as it could. The federal government and the state governments were severely in debt to Dutch lenders and the French for money borrowed to finance the Revolutionary War. Hamilton persuaded his contemporaries-Thomas Jefferson and James Madison-to agree to part of his plan by ceding the fight over the location of the national capitol (New Yorker Hamilton wanted it to be in New York City; Virginians Jefferson and Madison wanted the capitol in a new district created on the Potomac). He achieved the rest of his plan by laying out his argument in a 15,000-word essay for President Washington, who was swayed by his Treasury Secretary to create the First Bank of the United States.