Government.
Freedom
Extracts from a six-volume set of Plutarch’s Lives. Thereafter, Hamilton always interpreted politics as an epic tale from Plutarch of lust and greed and people plotting for power. Since his political...
Elite pedigree on both sides of his family, Jefferson was anything but common. His father, Peter, was a tobacco planter, a judge of the court of chancery, and a member of the Virginia House of Burgess...
Doggerel
Although he was not formally relieved until early November. Lincoln’s decision to cashier Frémont served as a cautionary tale for Grant, who noted, The generals who insisted upon writing emancipation...
Who were these solons rhapsodized by Benjamin Franklin as the most august and respectable assembly he was ever in in his life?44 The fifty-five delegates representing twelve states—the renegade Rhode...
When the XYZ papers were published, they proved a bonanza for the Federalists, and John Adams attained the zenith of his popularity as president.
Whatever his disappointments, Hamilton, forty, must have left Philadelphia with an immense feeling of accomplishment. The Whiskey Rebellion had been suppressed, the country's finances flourished, and...
What pretty much guaranteed that Johnson would side with white supremacists was his benighted view of black people. No American president has ever held such openly racist views. This is a country for...
Washington was taciturn, once advising his adopted grandson, It is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.
Washington and other founders entertained the fanciful hope that America would be spared the bane of political parties, which they called factions and associated with parochial self-interest.
To deal with the legions of dead, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs proposed the creation of a national military cemetery, surrounding the former Lee mansion at Arlington, and Stanton approved th...
To believe America able to withstand England is a dreadful infatuation.
These horror stories about Hamilton have been regurgitated for two centuries and are now engraved on the memories of historians and readers alike. Unfortunately, these vignettes often cruelly misrepre...
The speech lacked soaring cadences or memorable lines, yet it touched on two explosive issues at the finale. He advised Native Americans that their days as a hunting, gathering people were numbered an...
The rich could put their own interests above the national interests.
The residence law that passed Congress in July 1790, establishing Philadelphia as the interim capital,
The paper currency was depreciating rapidly. Hence, for the first time, Hamilton began to fiddle with ideas for creating a national bank, through a mixture of foreign loans and private subscriptions.
The panic was blamed on many factors—tight money, Roosevelt’s Gridiron Club speech attacking the malefactors of great wealth, and excessive speculation in copper, mining, and railroad stocks. The imme...