7 Secretary of the Treasury

CHAPTER 7 Secretary of the Treasury In 1789, the United States government was set up just the way it is today. The First Congress had already been in session since March. It was made up of a Senate and a House of Representatives that made laws. The Senate had two representatives for each of the thirteen states. The House of Representatives had different numbers of congressmen from each state, based on how many people lived there. The first Supreme Court met on February 2, 1790. It was the court's job to decide whether a law followed the rules that had been established by the Constitution.

第七章财政部长1789年，美国政府像今天这样成立了。 第一届代表大会自3月以来一直在开会。 它由制定法律的参议院和众议院组成。 参议院13个州各有两名代表。 根据每个州的人口数量，众议院有不同数量的国会议员。 第一届最高法院于1790年2月2日召开会议。 法院的工作是决定一项法律是否遵循宪法所确立的规则。

Alexander was the secretary of the treasury. The treasury is a place where money is kept, but it can also mean the money itself. He advised President Washington on all kinds of money matters and financial decisions. Thomas Jefferson was the secretary of state. He advised the president on US relations with foreign countries. People both in the United States and around the world quickly came to see that Alexander

亚历山大是财政部长。 国库是存放钱的地方，但它也可以指钱本身。 他为华盛顿总统提供各种货币事务和金融决策方面的建议。 托马斯·杰斐逊是当时的国务卿。 他就美国与外国的关系向总统提出建议。 美国和世界各地的人们很快就认识到亚历山大

Hamilton was one of the most important people in the new country. Many remembered him as a war hero at Yorktown. But he was now famous as Washington's most trusted advisor and one of the creators of the government. Alexander had a lot of ideas about the US Treasury. For example, he thought the federal government should pay off all the money that the individual states had borrowed as loans during the Revolutionary War. In order to do this, there would need to be a federal bank— a government-run bank that would collect taxes. Some states, especially in the South, had already paid off their debts by 1789. They didn't think it was fair that other people shouldn't have to do the same. Other states, especially in the North, thought Alexander's idea was good because most of the fighting had been done there. Therefore, their governments had spent more money to fund the army. Why shouldn't

汉密尔顿是这个新国家最重要的人物之一。 许多人记得他是约克镇的战争英雄。 但他现在是华盛顿最值得信赖的顾问，也是政府的缔造者之一。 亚历山大对美国财政部有很多想法。 例如，他认为联邦政府应该偿还独立战争期间各州借的所有贷款。 为了做到这一点，需要有一家联邦银行——一家政府经营的银行，负责收税。 一些州，尤其是南方的州，到1789年已经还清了债务。 他们认为其他人不应该做同样的事情是不公平的。 其他州，特别是北方的州，认为亚历山大的想法很好，因为大部分战斗都是在那里进行的。 因此，他们的政府花了更多的钱来资助军队。 为什么就不能

the whole country help pay it off, when it was everyone's war? Alexander hoped to use taxes to pay off these debts. He especially wanted to tax imports arriving from other countries. This, too, worried some people in the South. Although their economy was based on selling and exporting cotton to other countries, they were afraid that these new taxes would cause other countries to tax American cotton in return. They thought Alexander was giving the North an unfair advantage. Alexander thought that if America had a bank that was strong enough to loan and borrow money, it would show that the United States could do the same for other countries as well. He felt that having a federal bank was the only way to compete with other countries, like England.

这是一场人人都参与的战争，整个国家都在帮忙还债？ 亚历山大希望用税收来偿还这些债务。 他特别想对从其他国家进口的商品征税。 这也让南方的一些人感到担忧。 虽然他们的经济是以向其他国家销售和出口棉花为基础的，但他们担心这些新税会导致其他国家对美国棉花征税。 他们认为亚历山大给了北方不公平的优势。 亚历山大认为，如果美国有一家足够强大的银行，可以贷款和借贷，这将表明美国也可以为其他国家做同样的事情。 他认为，拥有一家联邦银行是与英国等其他国家竞争的唯一途径。

In February 1790, Alexander made a speech to Congress explaining his financial plans. A few days later, he was surprised and hurt when his friend James Madison made a speech that criticized it. Alexander felt very betrayed. People in the government—and all around the country—were starting to fall into two groups when it came to how they thought America

1790年2月，亚历山大向国会发表演讲，解释他的财政计划。 几天后，当他的朋友詹姆斯·麦迪逊发表演讲批评他时，他感到既惊讶又受伤。 亚历山大觉得自己被出卖了。 当涉及到对美国的看法时，政府和全国各地的人开始分成两类

should be run. The Federalists believed in Alexander's ideas. They also thought the United States should have a strong relationship with England because England's government was much like the one they had built. The Anti-Federalists became known as the Democratic-Republicans. These included Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who had by then changed his mind about Alexander's ideas. They believed in strong state governments and an economy based on farming, and they wanted a close relationship with France. The Democratic-Republicans did not like how close Alexander was to George Washington. The

应该运行。联邦党人相信亚历山大的观点。 他们还认为，美国应该与英国建立牢固的关系，因为英国的政府与他们建立的政府非常相似。 反联邦党人后来被称为民主共和党人。 这些人包括托马斯·杰斐逊和詹姆斯·麦迪逊，他们当时已经改变了对亚历山大观点的看法。 他们相信强大的州政府和以农业为基础的经济，他们希望与法国建立密切的关系。 民主党和共和党都不喜欢亚历山大和乔治·华盛顿走得太近。 的