It is an oddity, considering the popularity of the play Hamilton, that its subject, Alexander Hamilton — America’s first secretary of the treasury — has emerged as a favorite of sorts among those who roundly dislike President Donald Trump. In fact, Vice President Mike Pence was even castigated from the stage of a production of Hamilton for the supposed sin of serving as Trump’s vice president.

This is largely due to the misconception that Hamilton was an immigrant (it has become liberal dogma to attribute all types of positive qualities to immigrants), coupled with the accusation that Trump is anti-immigrant. Of course, while Hamilton was not born in one of the colonies that emerged as the United States of America in 1776, he was born in a Caribbean colony that was part of the British Empire. This means he was no more an immigrant than a person today who moves from Texas to Arkansas.

Open borders — or something rather close to it — is now the default position among America’s “elites,” thus making Hamilton (the supposed “immigrant”) something of a hero. Hamilton, who settled in New York, the home state of our 45th president, was, however, a powerful foe of another favored position of the elites — “free trade.” As a matter of historical fact, protectionism was the position of almost all the Founding Fathers. By the early part of the 1800s, there was not what would today be termed a “free trader” in the bunch.

It is really rather simple to understand why. They had only recently won their independence from the British Empire, and they wished to maintain that independence. Of all the arguments that can be forwarded about free trade, no one can seriously argue that it enhances our national sovereignty.

In his 1998 book, The Great Betrayal, Pat Buchanan makes this very point. “The most perilous aspect [of free trade] … is the loss of U.S. sovereignty and the potential loss of nationhood itself. Look at Europe. Nations there are meekly transferring control of their defense and foreign policy, of trade and immigration policy, to a superstate called the European Union; they are even giving up control of their currencies, which means control of their destinies. And what is happening to France, Britain, Germany, Italy, will happen here if we do not wake up. Once a nation has put its foot onto the slippery slope of global free trade, the process is inexorable, the end inevitable: death of the nation-state.”

Americans have enjoyed the fruits of national sovereignty for more than two centuries — sovereignty won by the nation’s Founders at great sacrifice. They knew what it was like to be told what to do on local matters by a far-off distant government, and they did not like it. The Hat Act, for example, severely limited the manufacture of hats in the colonies, making the colonists dependent upon British hatters. There is a reason, other than a fashion statement, that so many colonials, including Ben Franklin, wore coonskin caps and the like. more at:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/print-magazine/item/29722-tariffs-and-the-founding-fathers