In his latest NYT OP ED, David Brooks proposes that our Modern Conflict between the Obama Administration and the Tea Party movement is the latest installment of a conflict that has been going on since the beginning of the Union.  (Brooks of course throws in some stupid elitist comments about how  having "Educated People " in charge  will automatically generate a "backlash" of  "ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top" protestors, apparently unaware that his entire article  is an attempt to rebuke the Educated Elite's "ill mannered, conspiratorial, and over the top" accusations of Racism. )  However, when you start comparing Liberals to Hamilton, as Brooks has done, when they are supposed to revere Jefferson, you KNOW there is something seriously wrong in the comparison.

Madison, who would become aligned with Jefferson's "populists", argues in Federalist #10 that people free to produce for themselves will inevitably divide into "factions" - including Rich and Poor, and that the goal of the Constitution was to protect the inalienable  rights of all factions, without allowing any one faction to tyrannize another.  Hamilton, who co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Madison, agreed, and also sought to protect All of the interests of society- to protect the rich from the poor, and the poor from the rich.  The Federal Government is meant to be a balancing  act - a system whose primary purpose is to protect the inalienable rights of all.

With the recent failure of the Articles of Confederation, Hamilton very much worried that the new Constitutional Federal Government would be too weak to bind the colonies together, and did as much as he could to strengthen it, and hence could be considered in that context a "Statist".  Hamilton "elites" did seek to protect conglomerations of Capital and to promote heavy industry ,  while Jefferson "populists" , sought to create a more agrarian society in which power, and  capital were, of their nature, de-centralized.  However, to directly compare Hamilton's "Statism"  to a modern Liberal Statist would be inaccurate and wrong, as it would be to directly compare Jeffersonian "Populism" to the Modern Tea Party Movement.

“Elite” Hamiltonian Federalists and “populist” Jeffersonian Republicans argued over the degree of power the Federal Government would have WITHIN the context of a system of Constitutional Government approved by the People and with limited, enumerated powers. ALL of the Founding Fathers believed in and agreed to the basic Principles under which our government was to operate, even if they disagreed over the specifics of implementation. BOTH Hamilton AND Jefferson   advocated “a wise and frugal government” that will keep people from hurting each other, but will otherwise leave them free and “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” be they RICH or POOR, URBAN or RURAL, EDUCATED or ILLITERATE.  The principle that a man is entitled to the fruits of his own labor was never in question in the Early Republic.  Jefferson "populists" and Hamilton "Elites"  argued over how to best ensure the inalienable right to pursue happiness to all WITHIN a system of Constitutional Government. Modern Statists bear NO RELATION to either historical party and they DENY both the principles and system those parties held sacred.

The Modern Statist denies that the Powers of the Government must be ratified by the people, and instead believes changes can be made by judges according to "evolving standards"  in contradiction to long standing rules of legal interpretation advocated by the Founders  and the Principle of the separation of powers.

The modern Statist denies that Constitution is a contract to form a government which is only legitimate as long as it is interpreted according to the original intent of those who agreed to and ratified it.

 The Modern Statist denies that the citizens have inalienable rights conferred upon them by their creator, and instead assert "rights" are conferred by the State, and include material benefits provided though an entitlement to the use of someone else's labor.

The Modern Statist asserts that "Freedom From Want" (as defined by the Statist's in power, and without ratification of the people)  must be pursued first, at the expense of the best producers,  before any individual may be allowed to pursue their own happiness, and keep the fruits of their own labor. 

The MODERN  Battle between Modern "Elite, educated, and Urban"  Statists against Freedom-loving  Modern "Populists" has NOT always been the same as Brooks asserts. The  idea that "free labor is the essence of Americanism", that " Hard-working ordinary people, who create wealth in material ways, are the moral backbone of the country " and that in a " free, capitalist nation, people should be held responsible for their own output." was shared by both sides of the debate in the early Republic.  Our Modern Debate is between people who think, like all of our Founding Fathers, that "Money should not be redistributed to those who do not work” and that money “should not be sucked off by condescending, manipulative elites" and people  who think a  government of "highly educated"  "urban politicians, academics, Hollywood donors and information-age professionals" should use federal power to take over " Wall Street, the auto industry, the health care industries and the energy sector" in order to redistribute wealth and fund their own corrupt activities.

Our Country IS on the "verge of a crisis of legitimacy"  - a question over if the Statist government of Obama and the Elite is a legitimate power when the powers it is claiming were never ratified by the people.  A question of if Government of the People, by the People, and For the People, and the  Rule of Law will remain the legitimate basis of our union, or if it will be replaced with a tyranny of self-appointed elites and the arbitrary "Rule of men." Brooks is right that it is not a conflict "about Race" and that  "It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old." But the conflict is not one between  Hamiltonian “Elites” and Jeffersonian “Populists.” The conflict is way older than that.

"These are the two principles that are made the eternal struggle between right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face, one of them asserting the divine right of kings, the same principle that says you work, you toil, you earn bread, and I will eat it. It is the same old serpent, whether it come from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his nation, and to live upon the fat of his neighbor, or whether it comes from one race of men as an apology for the enslaving of another race of men." -Abraham Lincoln