John Adams summed up the case succinctly: In general, our generals have been outgeneralled.
In The Reynolds Pamphlet, Hamilton had exposed only his own folly. In the Adams pamphlet, he displayed both his own errant judgment and Adams’s instability.
In time, the government redefined the rules of the capitalist game to tame trusts and preserve competition, but as John D. Rockefeller set about building his fortune, the absence of clear-cut rules pr...
In the next poem, Hamilton has suddenly metamorphosed into a jaded rake, who begins with a shocking, Swiftian opening line: 'Celia's an artful little slut.
In the felicitous words of one early Burr biographer, The Clintons had power, the Livingstons had numbers, and the Schuylers had Hamilton.61
In other words, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence was recommending to the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution that any Virginia bank functionary who cooperated with Hamilton...
In mid-May, he dictated a message for a reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic that had a touching, patriarchal tone: Tell the boys that they probably will never look into my face again, nor hear m...
In closing, Washington referred to the character of Jesus, the Divine author of our blessed religion.32
In a moment of acute anxiety a year earlier, John Adams had wondered what would happen if the multitude, the vulgar, the herd, the rabble maintained such open defiance of authority. 13
If Hamilton had shot first, he had wasted his fire, exactly as foretold. And if Burr had fired first, as Pendleton alleged, then Hamilton seems to have squeezed the trigger in a reflexive spasm of ago...
Historians have been quick to pounce on the blind spots in Grant’s report. Less noticed is that he almost immediately recanted what he wrote. As early as January 12, 1866, Carl Schurz informed his wif...
He would smile at times, but I never heard him laugh aloud, said Louisa Boggs. He was a sad man . . . he seemed almost in despair.124 Grant seemed to be staring into an abyss. I don’t think he saw a l...
He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union. The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress, he declared. He favored granting Congress supreme power in war, peace, trade,...
He thought America’s character would be defined by how it treated its vanquished enemies, and he wanted to graduate from bitter wartime grievances to the forgiving posture of peace.
He sometimes represented poor people in criminal cases on a pro bono basis or was paid with just a barrel of ham.
He railed against the baleful precedent that would be set if the legislature exiled an entire category of people without hearings or trials. If that happened, no man can be safe, nor know when he may...
He now subjected the Articles of Confederation to a searching critique. He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union.
He made a cryptic statement to Hewitt that entered into Rockefeller folklore: I have ways of making money you know nothing about.
He generally spoke with much animation and energy, and with considerable gesture. His mind was filled with all the learning and precedence required for the occasion, enabling him to make numerous exte...
Hamilton said, he would follow the classic path of a populist demagogue: I would mount the hobbyhorse of popularity, I would cry out usurpation, danger