Hamilton was not the master builder of the Constitution: the laurels surely go to James Madison. He was, however, its foremost interpreter, starting with The Federalist and continuing with his Treasur...
Hamilton’s first act in Philadelphia paid homage to Franklin. The sage had opposed salaries for executive-branch officers, hoping such a measure would produce civic-minded leaders, not government offi...
Hamilton’s relatively short life robbed him not only of any chance for further accomplishment but of the opportunity to mold his historical image.
He had learned a lesson about propaganda in politics and mused wearily that no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false. If a charge was made often enoug...
He made a cryptic statement to Hewitt that entered into Rockefeller folklore: I have ways of making money you know nothing about.
He now subjected the Articles of Confederation to a searching critique. He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union.
He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton’s lifelong task was to try to straddle and resolve this contra...
He sometimes represented poor people in criminal cases on a pro bono basis or was paid with just a barrel of ham.
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 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 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...
His eloquence . . . seemed to require opposition to give it its full force.
His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won, had botched several through strategic blunders, and had won at Yorktown only with the indis...
His subordinates remembered him as tough but fair-minded. Years later, one of them retained Hamilton as a lawyer, even though he had become a vocal political enemy. When Hamilton questioned the wisdom...
His victory over the Cleveland refiners would be the first but also the most controversial campaign of his career.
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...
I think that we Americans, at least in the Southern col[onie]s, cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we shall have enfranchised our slaves, Laurens told a friend right before the signing...
In December 1790, with other options foreclosed, Hamilton revived a proposal he had floated in his Report on Public Credit: an excise tax on whiskey and other domestic spirits. He knew the measure wou...
In February 1878, Grant braved rain, wind, and snow to become the first American president to visit Jerusalem. He met with a delegation of American Jews who distributed relief to their suffering breth...
In March 1780, Congress tried to restore monetary order by issuing one new dollar in exchange for forty old ones,
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