This deep dive dismantles the fiction of the founders as a "uniform front." The real story is the bitter rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, which defined America's core conflict: federal power versus states' rights.

​This famous dichotomy, however, was built on a "Great Contradiction." Both of their competing philosophies depended on slavery and the systemic dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Jefferson, who wrote "all men are created equal," justified his ownership of over 600 people with "scientific racism." Hamilton's "overstated" abolitionism was secondary to his goal of economic unity, which required partnering with the slave economy.

​Their "common ground" was achieved through exclusionary compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise gave slave states disproportionate political power. The Compromise of 1790 tra ...