When Grant read this, he was outraged at the shocking suggestion that he had subverted justice. He handed the letter to Bristow with a passionate admonition scrawled across it: Let no guilty man escap...
When Grant made Edward S. Salomon governor of the Washington Territory, it was the first time an American Jew had occupied a gubernatorial post. (When Salomon proved corrupt, Grant handled his case le...
Washington told Pickering that it would be political suicide to recruit anyone into his administration who was not prepared to support his programs wholeheartedly.18 He had learned his lesson with Jef...
Washington replied, I always knew Colonel Hamilton to be a man of superior talents, but never supposed that he had any knowledge of finance. He knows everything, sir, Morris replied. To a mind like hi...
To those who feared oppressive taxes, Hamilton made an argument that anticipated supply-side economics of the late twentieth century, saying that officials can have no temptation to abuse this power,...
To survive, he continued to hawk firewood on the St. Louis streets and the time thus spent destroyed any chance of prospering as a farmer: I regard every load of wood taken, when the services of both...
To safeguard the public interest, the government would become a minority stockholder in the bank and able to vote for directors. Of the
Tis with governments as with individuals, first impressions and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and character. All
Tis with governments as with individuals, first impressions and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and character.
This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortali...
This falling-out was to be more than personal, for the rift between Hamilton and Madison precipitated the start of the two-party system in America.
There is no virtue [in] America. That commerce which preside[d over] the birth and education of these states has [fitted] their inhabitants for the chain and . . . the only condition they sincerely de...
Then, on September 1, 1802, Callender broke a story that he had learned about in jail and that was to reverberate down through American history: Jefferson’s scandalous romance with Sally Hemings: It i...
The world of politics was filled with duplicitous people and Grant was poorly equipped to spot them, remaining an easy victim for crooked men. They studied Grant, some of them, as the shoemaker measur...
The winning candidate needed 379 votes. On the first ballot, Grant drew a narrow lead of 304 votes versus 284 for Blaine, 93 for Sherman, 34 for George F. Edmunds of Vermont and—confirming Grant’s wor...
The three terms of Federalist rule had been full of dazzling accomplishments that Republicans, with their extreme apprehension of federal power, could never have achieved. Under the tutelage of Washin...
The task of government was not to stop selfish striving—a hopeless task—but to harness it for the public good.
The suspect nature of these stories can be seen in the anecdote Jefferson told of Hamilton visiting his lodging in 1792 and inquiring about three portraits on the wall. They are my trinity of the thre...
The stress placed upon the Adams-Hamilton feud pointed up a deeper problem in the Federalist party, one that may explain its ultimate failure to survive: the elitist nature of its politics. James McHe...
The spectacle of soldiers entering a statehouse left northern opinion aghast, leading to vociferous demands for Sheridan’s ouster. Major Republican newspapers in the North denounced Grant. William Cul...