ADAM SMITH, Introduction to Wealth of Nations, Book IV (1776): ‘POLITICAL ECONOMY, considered the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, ...
... or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.’
POLITICAL ECONOMIST: General George Washington was a foresighted Political Economist who read Adam Smith, and he inspired a 25 year old HQ Staff Officer, Alexander Hamilton (who had also read Adam Smith), to articulate financial plans for him during a decennium of war and peace.
Before traveling to Philadelphia to Sign the Constitution on September 17, 1787, George Washington carefully analyzed [at his desk in Mt. Vernon, in his own handwriting] all the Ancient and Modern Confederacies. He was looking for weaknesses (he referenced Montesquieu only once).
Washington's list was made up of the same Federations that Hamilton illustrated in his 'extraordinary'* Opening Speech of the Convention. Hamilton's outline is the only thing of his Speech that survives, but Washington's Notes fill in the details. [*Opinion of Gouvernour Morris.]
MILITARY GENIUS: George Washington is known as the greatest military genius in early U.S. History, and a new Movie 'Young Washington, is about to be released in Theaters for the 250th Anniversary, showing how he learned War.
During the Quasi War with Napoleonic France, General of the Army George Washington ordered his now 44 year old Chief of Staff (Major General Alexander Hamilton) to overhaul the War Department for him, inclusive of a Military Academy that President Jefferson established in 1802.
President Washington had signed the Act to Purchase West Point on July 6, 1790. West Point trained both the North and the South who would fight each other in the Civil War.
Hamilton wrote a letter to Secretary of War, James McHenry, November 23, 1799, and sent a copy to General Washington at Mount Vernon on November 28, 1799, asking him to suggest any alterations to the plans for a Military Academy.
On December 12, Washington replied he had made such an important recommendation to the Legislature every opportunity he had, and ‘I sincerely hope that the subject will meet with due attention.’ - This was the last letter he wrote: he died two days later, on December 14, 1799.
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