The founders built a system that assumed no parties, and had two within six years. The fight was over finance — whether a national debt, a bank and a manufacturing economy were the republic's salvation or its corruption.
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
AM2-136 · The First Party Fight — Open the drawer
The twenty-page legislative charter establishing the first federally chartered bank, signed into law by President Washington after Hamilton's proposal and Jefferson's constitutional objection—the document that crystallized the party divide over national finance.
AM2-137 · The First Party Fight — What is this thing?
A Treasury security issued 1790–1793 promising annual interest to the bondholder. These certificates, representing assumption of state war debts and creation of permanent national credit, became the flashpoint dividing Hamilton's commercial nationalists from Jefferson's agrarian republicans.
AM2-138 · The First Party Fight — Read the source
A handwritten federal debt certificate issued under Hamilton's funding plan, promising six percent annual interest. Two founding statesmen interpreted identical certificates as either salvation or corruption, revealing the financial philosophy divide that split the first parties.
AM2-139 · The First Party Fight — Map it / time it
Alexander Hamilton's Treasury report proposing federal support for domestic manufacturing, submitted to Congress in December 1791. A foundational policy document that crystallized competing visions of the republic's economic future and geographic development.
AM2-140 · The First Party Fight — Two sources disagree
Hamilton's confidential letter to President Washington accusing Jefferson of orchestrating a campaign to destroy public credit and federal authority through Republican newspapers and faction, presenting the financial system as essential to national survival.
AM2-141 · The First Party Fight — State the claim
Alexander Hamilton's foundational financial proposal to Congress, arguing the federal government should assume state debts and establish a national bank—the document that crystallized the first partisan divide over economic vision.
AM2-142 · The First Party Fight — Take the other side
A diplomatic letter from French revolutionary minister Edmond-Charles Genêt to Secretary of State Jefferson, 1793, requesting U.S. support for France against Britain and revealing how foreign power competition shaped early American factional division.
AM2-143 · The First Party Fight — Weigh it
Alexander Hamilton's January 1790 Treasury report proposing federal assumption of state debts and establishment of a national bank—the financial program that triggered the first party divide.
AM2-144 · The First Party Fight — Build the answer
Hamilton's January 1790 financial proposal to Congress, advocating federal assumption of state Revolutionary War debts and establishment of a national bank—the document that crystallized the first partisan divide over economic vision.
AM2-145 · The First Party Fight — For the file
Hamilton's 1791 Treasury report proposing federal support for domestic industry, the economic blueprint that divided the first Congress and crystallized competing visions of the republic's future.
AM2-146 · The First Party Fight — Go and look
The twenty-page legislative charter establishing Hamilton's national bank, signed February 25, 1791. Its passage split Congress along fault lines that became party boundaries, making it the physical record of the republic's first institutional schism.
AM2-147 · The First Party Fight — Now, today
Hamilton's January 1790 financial proposal to Congress, which recommended federal assumption of state war debts and establishment of a national bank—the document that crystallized the first partisan divide over the republic's economic future.
AM2-148 · The First Party Fight — Teach it back
Alexander Hamilton's foundational financial plan proposing federal assumption of state debts, establishment of a national bank, and protective tariffs—the document that crystallized the first partisan divide over the republic's economic future.
AM2-149 · The First Party Fight — The other place
A petition from western Pennsylvania distillers protesting the federal excise tax on spirits, exemplifying how Hamilton's financial program triggered resistance far from Philadelphia's merchant elite and revealed the party split's geographic and economic fractures.
AM2-150 · The First Party Fight — One object, close
A printed promissory note issued by Paymaster General John Pierce to discharged Continental soldiers, promising future payment of back wages and bounties—a debt instrument that became the flashpoint for the nation's first partisan divide over fiscal policy.
From the gallery’s own wall — “AM2-136 · The First Party Fight — Open the drawer”.