Founding Brothers

So, I am reading founding brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, and have learned two very interesting things. (Well, I've learned a lot of things, but I'm only going to mention two of them.)

1. The current movement towards nationalizing the banks would have given some of our founding fathers strokes. The National Bank was a very controverial thing because there were two conflicting movements at the time: one to create a strong government to rule over a nation, the other to create a loose confederation of states bound together by a small national government. The National bank reminded people a lot of the Bank of England, and angered those who wanted to move away from a strong central government. I'm not on the side of nationalizing much unless it is a resource that belongs (or should belong) to all of the citizens. (I'm talking water and such.)
2. So Dick Cheney actually had a precedent in declaring himself not part of the executive branch. Washington didn't really know what to do with his Vice-President Adams, cause really it was the first time we had one. Washington assumed Adams was part of the legislative branch because he was president of the Senate, and kept him out of a lot of the executive policy-making decisions because he wanted to keep a firm distance between the two legislative branches. The Cheney argument doesn't really wash with me because it appears that he had a lot to do with executive decision-making. It just seems.