Sign Banking Presentation Maryland Later

Industry sign banking maryland presentation later

welcome to conversations with the fed my name is carmiana matson i am the assistant vice president of regional outreach and public programs at the federal reserve bank of minneapolis today we have with us our senior vice president and general counsel neil willardson who will be speaking on hamilton central bank then and now a few announcements before we begin the presentation neil will be allowing for some q a at the end of his presentation we will entertain those questions via the chat feature on zoom so if you look at the chat button located at the bottom of your screen you can type questions in the chat box at any point during the presentation and i will pose those to neil at the end of his presentation we will also be following up with all registrants for this event we will send you an email early next week that contains a link to neil's video as well as some additional resources you may be interested in and at the end of the presentation you'll be presented with a survey to give us a little feedback about this event those are all the announcements i have so welcome again to conversations with the fed and i'll turn it over to neil willardson great thanks so much carmi uh well it's really great to be with all of you today to talk a little bit about alexander hamilton one of america's founding fathers he certainly influenced today's central bank uh and we want to today talk about where there's some similarities between hamilton's bank of the united states and today's federal reserve system at the same time it's also helpful to look back at the founding of the united states and see how the debates and differences shaped not only the first bank united states but other aspects of our financial system so today i hope to illustrate how alexander hamilton was a visionary for much of the federal reserve our central bank he was the united states first central banker i'm sure many of you have seen the hamilton play live seen the movie on disney plus or maybe listen to the soundtrack i had the opportunity to see the play in minneapolis with my family a little over two years ago it's really a phenomenal work uh telling the story of one of our founding fathers and draws heavily from r b hip-hop and other musical genres and lin-manuel miranda brilliantly casted people of color as the founding fathers and other historical figures to produce one of the most successful broadway shows in history miranda described his work about america then as told by america now hamilton the play focused on the wide range of his contributions to our republic as miranda drew from the 2004 biography by ron chernow for his content i also draw from churno's great work for this talk and dig into some historical academic work on the origins of the first bank of the united states i also looked at some of the newspapers the 1800s and many other sources including some work just published by jesse sir philippe a historian at albion's albany's schuyler mansion so here's where i'm going to go today the core part of what i hope to cover focuses on hamilton's influence on the federal reserve today but i want to book in that discussion with some background information about hamilton because his upbringing influenced his positions on central banking and then at the end we of course have to talk about hamilton's tragic passing in a duel that took his life on july 11 1804 in weehawken new jersey so let's go ahead and dive in hamilton was born in either 1755 or 1757 on the tiny island of nevis in the british west indies lin-manuel miranda would say hamilton was dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the caribbean most references to hamilton say he was born in 1757 because that's what he told people and that's what's on his tombstone in new york near trinity church not far from the new york fed but the public records in nevis in the west indies suggest 1755 it appears as though hamilton may have changed his birthday a bit to make his candidacy more attractive to people that he hoped would hire him as an apprentice it also made him look even more like a prodigy when he came to the united states later hamilton certainly had a challenging childhood he was the founding father without a father and at only 14 he was in charge of a trading charter in 1772 hamilton wrote an account of a hurricane that hit saint croix and it so impressed the locals that they all chipped in to send him to new york for his education now there's lots of wonderful details about hamilton that we could spend hours on and really still not uh scratch the depths of his interests and contributions so to help provide a bit of a contemporary handle on hamilton we decided to create our own private linkedin page about him so let's so this is what it looks like and let's assume this is around 1796 and alexander hamilton is no longer treasury secretary having served as a first treasury secretary is under uh president washington and he says you know i need to i need to network a little bit so on his linkedin page you can see some of his affiliations you can see that he went to king's college for a bit which later became columbia college and then columbia university and of course hamilton served in the u.s army during the revolutionary war it was during those revolutionary war days that he began to link up with some of his key influencers shown on the right so it's a pretty impressive list of linkedin buddies they're people like george washington who led the revolutionary war efforts with hamilton at his side as aid to camp of course washington set the standard as a two-term first president from 1789 to 1797. some of other hamilton's other influencers include the schuyler sisters angelica eliza and peggy and while the musical depicts hamilton meeting his friends lafayette america's favorite founding frenchman lawrence and mulligan all the same time in a tavern he actually met them over a period of years but he was friends with each of them on his linkedin page you see hamilton's co-authors of the federalist papers james madison james madison and john jay although hamilton wrote the vast majority of these 85 papers and is credited with something like 51 of them so this picture depicts the signing of the u s constitution on september 17 1787 in the foreground you can see alexander hamilton whispering to benjamin franklin now this howard christie painting depicts 39 of the 55 delegates to the constitutional convention it doesn't include the three who didn't sign the constitution or the thirteen that left during the convention hamilton wrote the call for the constitution convinced in the first place and was also a signer after looking at that picture of the constitutional convention of only white men and largely wealthy white men it's a good time to pause to comment and talk about alexander hamilton on race and in particular slavery the continued racial inequities and policing education employment in other areas society which have been highlighted over the last several months and years require this re-examination the diverse america that miranda so thoughtfully portrays in his play was not present at the time of our admittedly flawed founding fathers now despite hopeful statements by hamilton and others that all men and notably hamilton did not say people have one common origin nature and right quoted above that simply was not the case at the time miranda himself noted that the founding fathers and others were complicit in slavery and people like annette gordon reed and keith paul that are quoted above noted that rather than challenge slavery these founding fathers accepted it including the three-fifth rule in the constitution to appease southern states that treated americans more like property than citizens and this compromise is painfully described in federalist paper 53. some of this re-examination continues even over the last month or so recently jesse sir filippi a historian at the schuyler mansion and yes that's that schuyler mansion published a thoughtful paper reviewing primary sources which reveal and i quote from mr flippy that the enslavement of men women and children of african descent was part of both hamilton's professional and personal life sir philippi uses hamilton's own records and hamilton was a very detailed record keeper to make her case that hamilton not only supported other slaveholders but he actually owned slaves himself in this way she appropriately notes that the myth of hamilton as the abolitionist founding father should end after that brief but important discussion about hamilton and slavery let's turn back to the 1780s the collection of essays called the federalist papers i actually have my very own copy here thanks for nice nighttime reading at the time was was urging citizens to support the ratification the constitution and those essays were published anonymously in the new york newspapers the basic theme of the federalist papers was the constitution would preserve the union and empower the federal government to act firmly and coherently in the national interest hamilton wasn't born or raised in the united states so unlike other fathers founding fathers he didn't have a strong state or regional influence connection unlike people like jefferson and mattis and others that we'll talk about in just a bit the federalist papers were not only very influential at the time they were truly influential but they've also been cited more than 300 time 300 times in u.s supreme court cases now let's go back to hamilton's linkedin page i want to turn to hamilton's appointment by george washington as the first secretary of the treasury of the united states the treasury department was created by an act of congress and its influence under hamilton was truly remarkable within a year of hamilton's formation of the treasury department and beginning of the department there were something like 53 treasury staffers and this compares to only five at state under thomas jefferson and three at the war department under knox you could say hamilton doesn't hesitate he exhibits no restraint in taking quick action to make treasury a force i should pause here for a moment as we recently recognized an historic first when former chair of the federal reserve janet yellen was recently announced as a likely appointee as a treasury secretary for president-elect biden janet yellen was not only the first female chair of the board of governors of federal reserve she was the first woman to leave the san francisco lead the san francisco fed but she'll now also be the first woman to serve as a secretary of treasury i was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with janet yellen while i when i did a stint to the board of governors a few years back she's truly an amazing leader and i have no doubt that she will be an incredible treasury secretary so let's turn back briefly to hamilton's leadership in driving change in our financial system even as early as 1790s richard silla and david cohen's book on financial history defy described this period in the 1790s and late 1780s as hamilton's financial revolution noting the key aspects of a successful economic system these included things like effective institutions of public finance founding a central bank to aid the government's finances and serve as a central node to banking and financial system creating the us dollar as a country's unit of account to medium exchange and fostering growth by encouraging states to create banks to lend to businesses and also fostering the growth of the security markets to make assets more liquid and transferable and generally foster the growth of business corporations it didn't stop there hamilton gave a lot of thought to a specific financial plan would which would include some key components and these components were critically important for the economy but they're also important for the concept of a federal government more broadly a key discussion at the time was the assumption of the war deaths of the colonies that ultimately would provide some of the funding for the running of government now the assumption of debt at the time was a really big deal noah webster was a school master of america said at the time the establishment of funds to maintain public credit could have an amazing effect on the face of business in the country he said money can circulate freely commerce revives and the country can be full of provisions manufacturers are increasing the increase of capital must have great effects and stand unparalleled in the history of commerce you can see this idea that the economy was beginning to grow and build even at this period of time in the late 18th century hamilton viewed the assumption of debt as a key part of a full economic puzzle and even though there were only a few banks around at the time hamilton envisioned a national bank with considerably greater influence in the government but along with some private characteristics so a key component of hamilton's financial plan was the concept of a central bank you see in the central bank those embedded components of the financial plan these include the concept of a u.s currency something that really wasn't envisioned until hamilton's bank in the united states of course that concept is something that continues to this day with hamilton on the 10 bill well sometimes we need to be reminded that democracy can be messy and the 1790s was really no exception hamilton had what he thought was a good idea but there were more than just a few that didn't like it and there were two key players that had their own idea jefferson and madison and they were diametrically opposed foes to hamilton they didn't like a number of the aspects of the financial plan assumption of debts and ability to tax among them this disagreement went back to a differing economic view jefferson and madison were virginians that had a more agrarian vision for the united states and were concerned about too much federal power vis-a-vis the states now back to aham and g wash these two certainly felt the plan and the bank united states was a constitutional exercise of implied powers and here's a nice alliterative phrase from me that didn't appear in the musical it's constitutional commercial workable and an economical and it might make it must be nice for hamilton to have washington on his side so this is an early test for the national plan for hamilton's national plan and the federal government more broadly now as it happens in 1790 this is around june of 1790 hamilton runs into jefferson in new york city and the financial plan where the government would assume state debts and the states would pay taxes had just been rejected jefferson and madison were both opposed to state assumption in part because virginia had nearly repaid its debts debts were owed to many through the script issued at the time but hamilton said unless you could establish credit you could never have an effective economy so jefferson set up a dinner at his house arranging the menu the venue and the seating and all three madison jefferson and hamilton are invited one of the most famous meals in american history right there on maiden lane across the street from where the new york fed stands today well quite possibly one of my favorite tunes in hamilton the musical is the room where it happens where miranda talks about this controversy in a very clever way he brings madison jefferson and hamilton together in a room which did happen and notes that they are diametrically opposed foes but the primary lead in the song was aaron burr who wasn't in the room where it happened well as it turns out i wasn't in the room either but i'm going to give my perspective just like burr in in miranda's hamilton now reports from that diplomatic meeting describe a chess match match think of maybe the queen's gambit in netflix well not exactly quite like that it was more of a discussion and hamilton felt strongly that the financial plan in particular the assumption of debts was the key glue that would keep the country together but reports of the time suggested it was a quid pro quo at the same time there was a debate about the financial plan there is a important discussion about the placement of the nation's capital many thought the de facto financial center of the country new york and new york city would be ideal others f lt that the capital should be in philadelphia pennsylvania given its large population and key role in the formation of our nation and while jefferson and madison oppose the financial plan they were united in the desire to have the new nation's capital on the potomac river in a location now known as washington dc and even after the bill passed 39 to 20 and was sent to him president washington took the full 10 days afforded him and sought counsel from cabinet members of the constitutionality of the bank of the united states attorney general randolph and department of state jefferson felt that the bank of the united states was unconstitutional because it wasn't something specifically delineated in the constitution washington submitted the randolph and jefferson's briefs to hamilton who promptly pulled an all-nighter working with his wife eliza to produce his report noting that every power in a government includes the means requisite and applicable to the attainment of the ends and such that the power to form a national bank was implicit in the constitution washington signed the bill and agreed with hamilton and the residence bill was also signed the next day so this is a bit of a timeline george washington signs the bill containing the provisions for the national bank and opens its doors thereafter and the slide here provides the big picture overview of the history of the first bank the united states including including its inception the early challenges including a financial panic and its closure some 20 years later while the bank didn't survive long many of the basic principles and foundations of that bank influenced other central banks including today's federal reserve now let's lead with the scope of responsibilities for both the bank of the united states and today's federal reserve system both have public and private characteristics but the bank of the united states had a closer connection to the private side given that it served as a commercial bank it sold pot stock to the public it made loans to the public and it took deposits at the same time it had some decidedly governmental functions like collecting taxes that are now of course part of today's modern day treasury department not the federal reserve and today's fed is responsible for the country's monetary policy through the federal open market committee it also plays key roles today in bank regulation supervision and in payments in financial stability now shared between both unit bank of the united states and the fed are those fiscal agent roles although they're of different character today than they were back in those bank of the united states days the bank of the united states collected tax revenues it secured government funds and paid government bills the fed today acts as the governance government's bank and performs several services for the u s treasury it maintains u.s treasury accounts it processes government checks it issues and redeems savings bonds it collects federal tax deposits among other services that it's doing on behalf of the of the us treasury and the minneapolis fed plays a key role in this regard providing treasury retail support services to customers now this slide tees up a series of perspectives on the similarities and differences in governance between the bank of the united states and the federal reserve system now both have main offices and regional offices reflecting the key importance of regional influence in policy and administration both have public purposes and independent directors that form a core of our governance this picture of the bank of the united states the geography of the bank of the united states shows a limited geography of the u.s at the time as well you can see that the branches at the top from the boston and the from boston to savannah on the eastern seaboard along with new orleans as the furthest west branch of the bank of the united states this current picture of the federal reserve shows its main offices there are 12 reserve banks and 24 branches governed by the board of governors in washington dc as this picture reflects the system as formed in 1914 you still still see something of a waiting towards the eastern part of the united states a key message however is the importance of local input to the monetary policy process and that's reflected the unique governance of the federal reserve system congress wanted to make sure that regions across the country were directly represented in policy making making and that continues to this day this decentralized system is consistent with the governance for not philosophies that underpin our country's formation more broadly i'm going to provide some additional details on the unique governance of the fed starting with the role that the board of governors plays the board is an independent agency and led by seven governors who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate of course the current chair of the board of governors is jay powell next i'm going to turn to the role of bank directors and leadership of both the bank of the united states and the federal reserve system i look back at some of those texts that i talked about earlier some of the history and the financial history of the united states and looked at the first 25 directors of the bank of the united states nine of those directors were from pennsylvania seven were from new york four were from massachusetts one each from maryland north carolina south carolina virginia and connecticut and those first board members the bank united states included three senators and four congressmen included four lawyers merchants brokers and a physician most of the directors of the bank united states were federalists and all directors were men thomas willing was the first president of the bank of the united states and now today's federal reserve each reserve bank is a corporation of the united states formed in 1914. now there's a picture there of neil kashkari that's the larger picture in the upper left and neil served as the president and ceo of the minneapolis fed he also is the bank's representative to the federal open market committee and today and this year serves as a voting member of the federal open market committee just below neil is ron feldman who is the first vice president and chief operating officer of the minneapolis fed the remainder of the bank's management committee is on the picture is pictured to the right and is notable above the president and the first vice president of each reserve bank are appointed and reappointed by six of the nine reserve bank directors subject to approval by the board of governors in washington d.c and like the bank of the united states we also have directors to oversee reserve bank operations but unlike those directors our current directors provide key business insights to support the monetary policy process that's that unique aspect of today's federal reserve system this picture shows the nine directors of the main office the minneapolis fed and the additional directors of our branch in helena montana unlike those bank of the united states directors federal reserve directors cannot hold political office and there's a focus on diversity from a variety of dimensions that includes diversity from an industry and sector perspective geographic diversity gender diversity diversity and racial ethnicity diversity as i dug further and looking at some of those similarities and differences between the bank of the united states and today's federal reserve system i read some great historical perspectives on the bank united states including david cohen's excellent book on the origins and impact of the bank united states i was really uh initially surprised by some of those similarities that were not really prominently discussed in the areas of transparency and stability so one of the key features of any banks especially central banks is on the quality and the accuracy of their financials and the quality and accuracy of an even transparency was an early focus of the bank of the united states with hamilton requiring the production of weekly financial statements so this statement goes back to the 1790s now while hamilton's bank bank made some important attempts to be transparent today's fed has a significant and even greater commitment that goes well beyond the bank of the united states as uh as you might expect the federal reserve is accountable to congress we a creature of congress and the public and we provide substantial information consistent with the fed's trans uh commitment to transparency this includes audit and financial information including independent audits and information on the various policy actions the federal reserve some of those areas of transparency are noted above on the slide now financial stability was tested a few times in the early days of the bank of the united states first in 1791 and then in 1792 then secretary of the treasury alexander hamilton responded to those concerns by making open market purchases of government securities hamilton acted like central banks of today in providing liquidity in making those in those cases by making direct open market market purchases of those government securities treasury acted in some ways as a lender of last resort provided funding to banks in ailing banks either directly or indirectly through the bank of the united states and branch officers of the bank the united states had something of a discount window function not much different than what we see today in the reserve banks providing funding to banks especially in the case of extreme liquidity needs and treasury and the bank united states had an interest in the banking system more broadly but this is nothing like the current and supervision and regulatory system that we see in today's federal reserve or in the other regulatory agencies in the united states now of course the federal reserve system took unprecedented action in 2008 to respond to the financial crisis and more recently in response to the pandemic in collaboration with the treasury the fed has taken a broad array of actions to respond to the econom economic damage from the pandemic including trillions in lending to households employers financial markets and state and local governments as chair powell has indicated these actions will be used forcefully proactively and aggressively until we are confident that we are on solidly on the road to recovery well i managed to get us right close up to the end to hamilton's life without spending too much time talking about aaron burr those of you that remember lin manuel's play there's lots of talk about by aaron burr throughout the play but i've left it to the end here during today's talk now perhaps i did this because no one's written a broadway smash musical about aaron burb but burn hamilton will be linked forever due to their famous duel held in 1804. as miranda's work illustrated they had a number of interactions throughout the years burr was born in 1756 so depending on who you believe here uh and about who you believe in terms of hamilton's birth he was either a year older or a year younger than alexander hamilton burst served as a continental army officer in the american revolutionary war after which he became a successful lawyer and politician and actually hamilton and burr served and represented some clients uh together in their days both serving as lawyers in new york burst served in the new york state assembly was a new york attorney general and served as a u.s senator and was of course vice president when he was defeated by jefferson in the electoral college after hamilton supported jefferson in the election of 1800 burr was also defeated as new york governor after hamilton supported his opponent see a pattern here while hamilton was fairly close to burr in terms of some of his policy perspective he did not support burr because he thought that burr was in it for himself and he said that burr had no morals hamilton felt the bureau not to be trusted with the reins of government and made that clear to burr and others now the duel itself may not be the most interesting part of the history between these early americans although it is pretty darn interesting in somewhat typical fashion for those days and the sort of the code of the duels both burr and hamilton and their seconds exchanged a series of letters prior to the duel in this time-honored attempt to cool things down after hamilton apparently slighted burr now while i was doing some of the research for this talk i was really struck by the efforts that hamilton and those around him took to tell his story hamilton's papers during his political life and even the detailed letters between hamilton and burr were carefully retained due to instructions given to hamilton second nathaniel pendleton in those papers along with accounts published shortly after the duel by both burs and hamilton second seem to be the most reliable accounts of the duel amazingly within a week or two details of those accounts were published in the newspapers of today and those are available on the internet along with the letters and portions of hamilton's journaling and also his last will and testament well you probably know the rest of the story burn hamilton along with their seconds and a physician rode across the hudson to weehawken new jersey hamilton wrote a letter to his wife eliza to be delivered one day after his death remarkably hamilton's letters and last will and testament were again published in new york newspapers at the time one of which was founded by hamilton earlier and that helped establish hamilton's position in the duel itself for the duel hamilton and burr marked out their 10 paces the duel taking place right near the spot where hamilton's son phillip had died in a duel defending his honor hamilton's honor just three years earlier hamilton told his second that he intended to satisfy both his religious principles and honor by not firing that was similar advice that hamilton gave to his son phillip the firsthand accounts of the duel agreed that two shots were fired although the seconds disagreed on the time between the shots some accounts indicated that hamilton apparently fired a shot well above burr's head and pendleton insisted later that he recovered the bullet in a tree much higher than where burr stood so hamilton was determined to throw away his shot so to speak burt fired and hit hamilton the lower abdomen above the right hip it was a mortal wound and hamilton died some 30 hours later hamilton died on july 12 1804 at age 49. there was an outpouring of remorse because of hamilton's visionary thinking america had the highest credit rating in the world and eliza hamilton's wife would staunchly guard hamilton's memory long after his death now the first bank of the united states was not renewed after 20-year term limit and then there was a second bank of the united states which also had only a second 20-year run there are a series of challenging crises during the 1800s and ultimately today's federal reserve was formed through legislation signed by woodrow wilson on december 13 1913. reserve banks were charted chartered in 1914. as neil kashkari has noted the federal reserve is the modern manifestation of hamilton's original vision for american national bank updated to meet the needs of our large diverse economy hamilton's legacy of public service is instilled in the federal reserve today we're here to serve the public by pursuing a growing economy and a stable financial system that work for all of us hamilton found his identity in making a contribution to public service these attributes remain a key part of those of us who work for the federal reserve with that i'll close it off and i'm happy to take any questions thanks neil if you have questions for neil you can type those in the chat box located at the bottom of your zoom window we have had a number of questions already come in through the chat so we'll see how many we can get through in the next 20 minutes or so so neil first question and this is that isn't actually related to hamilton but is an important thing to clear up an astute viewer of your early slide that had the map of the federal reserve system on it noted that it appeared that the minneapolis fed services the upper peninsula of michigan hough not the rest of the state and they were kind of wondering about that and is that the case in other federal reserve districts and and maybe to elaborate from there you know what's the history of establishing those districts yeah no that's uh that's a good catch by the viewer yes the ninth federal reserve district includes just the upper peninsula michigan the lower part of michigan is part of the chicago fed or the seventh district so that is uh a part of the process in thinking about the federal reserve system there was a there was a discussion about where the federal reserve cities could be or should be and there was a form a formation committee that was formed under the congressional acts and the the congress did not say there should be exactly 12 banks there was a range of banks that's considered in the legislation and this formation committee did a bit of a road show and cities bid on whether there should be uh uh whether where the city for the reserve bank should be for example unusual fashion minneapolis and st paul had a debate and discussion about whether it should be in minneapolis or saint paul and in this case minneapolis happened to win out so yes and some of those geographic boundaries were established after uh the congressional action and some do split up states just like the ninth district does thanks neil let's turn now to some more hamilton specific questions what disagreements if any do you think hamilton would have had with today's fed policies yeah no that's that's that's a good question you know in terms of of fed governance um even though the first bank had uh separate branches as we've noted uh along that eastern seaboard hamilton was originally not a big fan of branches of the bank of the united states he had to be convinced and this was a usual process where there was a debate in discussion that made sense to have more of a distributed system to meet the needs of the region and the communities that they served his strong interest hamilton's strong interest in a central authority may have suggested that the board of governors in today's world would have a greater weighting in the federal open market committee it is interesting we have a policy arm of for monetary policy that includes that regional input that process of rotating presidents of the reserve banks to serve on the federal open market committee along with the board of governors to provide that policy perspective and that's really pretty unique to the american federal reserve or the american central bank and so that might be something a little bit different than maybe hamilton would have envisioned but i think as he sees the success of that regional influence the kind of success of our economic vitality i think he would say that's worked out well in terms of policies and let's talk to the sort of the extreme financial and economic environment in 2008 and even with the pandemic i think he would say in his experiences and actions during his own crisis in the 1790s would he would i think that would suggest that hamilton would be supportive of actions taken by the federal reserve and by the treasury and the government more broadly in response to actions taken in 2008 and also some of those concerns that happened during the pandemic so i think he would support those those financial actions that were taken by both the government and the federal reserve and do we know where hamilton came up with his ideas for a central bank was some of that from the bank of england was that adam smith where where was he drawing from yeah uh you got it both uh central bank uh the central bank of the uk the bank of england uh adam smith uh you know he was a vociferous reader um and even though he grew up and he was a person of limited means he drew from lots of reading himself in his early days when you know he was a teen but also you know the process of engaging with others and and reading and and talking with others about what would be appropriate uh for the central bank and the bank the first bank united states was part of his thinking and process and so there were there were others that influenced him as well well and speaking of folks who influenced him will you talk a little bit more about eliza's role and how influential you think she was in terms of historical events yeah no i i think you know she's really a sort of a unsung hero here um you know the miranda lin-manuel mirando internal give considerable attention to hamilton's strong friendship and affection uh to eliza and also um you know the friendship that he had with angelica and this was you know shown in the correspondence between eliza and also angelica in the time eliza was really a force in hamilton's thinking and she hated hamilton in many of his writings his 31-page letter for example to robert morris provided some of the background for what would later be the financial system and that was in her handwriting she supported hamilton in the writing of the federalist papers she often served as an intermediary between hamilton and some of those publishers many per people observed that eliza was the treasurer of the household of eight children while hamilton served as the secretary of the treasury and i think importantly um and again this is really part of one of the true gifts that we've received from the hamilton estate because when alexander hamilton passed eliza played a key role in the preservation of that history she also worked to repay hamilton's considerable debts she worked to have hamilton's work published by the library of congress and she lived to the ripe old age of 97 so eliza was not only during hamilton's life but afterwards really a key part of our history and our financial history of the united states there's a question about whether there was kind of a push in a poll situation between internationalists and nationalists at the time can you speak to that a little bit no definitely and that that also um you know what what's interesting when you look at the financial history the financial history the united states has a has some interesting parallels to the regular in the political history of the united states so every time that there were questions about how we connected financially to to other countries those same debates were taking place during the political history of the united states and you know some of the politicians at the time had a closer allegiance to say the french versus the english and those same influences were part of the debate in the discussion between hamilton and jefferson and madison and some of the folks that we're thinking about how do we how do we frame our our history over time our political views and how do we frame our our financial institutions and um hamilton i think ultimately won out on the financial history i mean he really did press the vision now he didn't get everything right i would say that he wasn't you know he wasn't he didn't bat a thousand but i think you know he was uh he was definitely a hall of famer when it came to being right with respect and and being influential in developing really a market economy one that was focused on economic growth for for all within the country and not focused on just a few that maybe some others would have probably focused more attention on do you think that hamilton would have supported an independent fed or would he have thought it should have been part of the treasury you know that that that is a good question because you do see that in some of the you know uh the as we talked about the the focus of the bank united states and and the role and taxes the treasury more broadly in the role of taxes in the bank united states and taxes and i think he might have seen more of a melding of those two um i think it has served us well uh to have that separation that independence uh of the of the federal reserve from the government there's certainly a lot of economic papers that are written about independent central bank and to you know there's certainly accountability no question accountability to the government to the people the united states but having that independence can lead to better policies so that no individual politician or group of politicians would influence what otherwise would be sound economic policy in the direction in this case of the federal open market committee and again there are you know appointees of the federal reserve that are appointed by the president that are confirmed by the senate that serve relatively long terms in part to support that independence over time do we know if hamilton or any of the founding fathers argued for a role of government in providing a social safety net uh yeah you know that that's a good question um i you know that's one that i'm just not as familiar with i i think if you go back um you know hamilton was again a big believer in having a a a broad potential for broad economic growth and over time you know that that is that has morphed over time and we've seen as we discussed earlier not everybody not all people had the opportunity to contribute into the economy in those days and so yeah even when even when i use those words of having a opportunity of economic growth a lot of people were left out of that vision during the 1790s and the 1800s and even well into the 1900s and today unfortunately and that's part of what today's federal reserve is is trying to focus on in the federal reserve bank in minneapolis in particular um but yes i think you know we we also thought about the separation of monetary policy and fiscal policy and certainly fiscal policy often is one that's focused on that that that safety net so there is um i guess we have to think about what's the appropriate role of a central bank certainly raising the concerns highlighting those issues and identifying where there's opportunities knowing that fiscal policy is ultimately going to be the one that's going to be directly responsive in supporting that social safety net more broadly well and related to people who were overlooked in hamilton's economy there was a question about to what extent do you think that hamilton was influenced by the role of slavery in the economy yeah no one and you know there is again i think one thing that's been very interesting and i noted some of the recent work that's been done uh uh in on this front you know hamilton himself when he was in nevis i mean he he literally um was living next door to an active slave trade on nevis and so he saw upfront uh the slave trade um you know he made policy decisions himself in in many cases to um you know even though he may have had a personal disdain disdain for slavery the policy decisions that he supported the compromises that he made with some of the southern states um as we've talked about we're not favorable we're really problematic um for for slaves and led to you know a really delay significant delay of opportunities for people of color in the united states and that's truly unfortunate and i think you know so i think one of the things that i think has been really important is to recognize that the founding fathers were flawed and that he didn't see some of those opportunities like we see and we've that have been exposed to us today and really a core message of the concern and i think lin-manuel miranda has recognized that himself i think you know he's tried to recognize that in his really phenomenal work but he himself has said you know there's there's serious concerns that you know thinking about the play today he might have done some things differently well and related to that you had mentioned the work a little bit the work that the minneapolis fed does to build an economy that works for all of us there's a question in the chat about how the fed's role has evolved over time and pointing out that that's one thing that the minneapolis fed is working on that those equity gaps between blacks and whites in terms of achievement are there other concerns that have arisen from regional banks that have evolved over time yeah and a good opportunity to provide a pitch for our races racism and the economy series it's a multi-part series and i've had an opportunity to sort of in the great thing you know we have to find uh you know opportunities uh and and um you know positives out of this pandemic the great thing about um that has been you know those have been available more broadly to this audience across the country so people can can have an opportunity to hear some of the great speakers the economists the policymakers and others and it's a collaboration across multi-federal reserve banks to support this discussion these key discussions of racism in the economy so i just want to highlight that for the group and go out on our website and sign up for one of those future sessions and go back and watch the videos of some of the previous ones are really great yeah and reserve banks have historically uh you know provided those early takes i mean we certainly represent our regions and we've noted our region which is north and south dakota and montana minnesota the upper peninsula of michigan northwestern wisconsin in thinking about what's happening in our district and where there's opportunities and you know we are the voice of our ninth federal reserve district and we attempt to serve our public and see those things that you all see across our district and then provide sort of that opportunity um and and push up some of the thinking um the great thing about the regional nature of the fed there's there's there's opportunity for really great intellectual thought to come from the reserve banks we have a great set of economists here policymakers and neil kashkari has really brought some bold ideas not only for our district for for the country more broadly and that sort of distributed federal reserve system is really a true stank strength of the fed so i think you're gonna you see that in multiple dimensions are too big to fail efforts for example over several years is another example where we've identified some opportunities to support financial stability more broadly so and you know that the opportunity to hear from other districts and we certainly have our examples as do others that support uh various policies that have hopefully served our economy and the people in our economy more broadly over time as you were talking neil i typed in the zoom chat box a link to our racism in the economy series if folks would like to get more information about that and in fact if they'd like to read further you had mentioned a book that had the history of the first central bank someone was wondering if you could name drop that again yes um it's by cilla and cohen i believe um s-y-l-l-a-c-o-w-e-n and i think it's a history of the bank of the united states or something like that and and uh yeah i mean and again most of the work here that i drew from as really secondary resource research folks uh like those i've mentioned in the talk and many others are part of the bibliography for today's discussion i drew very heavily from that did you know relatively little original research except you know as i started to dig back into those newspapers the early 1800s as you know many of us do i got so caught up in the research at times i kept looking at some of the old history there and it's really fascinating and it's it's really a gift to be able to go back to look at some of those some of that history and remarkably the um the duel was reported within seven days of the duel that took place in 1804 the last will and testament was published the second the views of the seconds were published in the newspapers of the day so it's really helpful in my view to read those almost contemporaneous views of what happened especially during the duel excellent thank you so much for your time today neil we have reached the end of our time and we've gotten to i believe all of the questions in the chat box if you are interested in joining us for a future event we'd love to see you i'll just put in the chat box right now our next event is a little different than this neil has been talking about the the fed's role historically in monetary policy banking supervision we have an upcoming conference in january on the covid economy in the states of the ninth district it will feature a keynote address from north dakota govern r doug burgum as well as economists from each of the six states in our region talking about covid's impact on workers specifically in those regions we'd love for you to join us we have a link to that in the chat we'd also love it if you would fill out our survey form as you exit the zoom today to give us a little feedback thanks everyone for your time we appreciate you being here