He also saw human nature as insatiably curious and reserved his highest praise for minds that created schemes or systems of truth.11
Hamilton’s relatively short life robbed him not only of any chance for further accomplishment but of the opportunity to mold his historical image.
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 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 stole the moral high ground from opponents and established the legal and moral basis for securities trading in America: the notion that securities are freely transferable and that buyers assu...
Hamilton showed that, for all his misgivings about the Constitution, he could be cooperative and play a serviceable part. The convention showed good judgment in choosing him, given his literary gifts...
Hamilton seemed to spark controversy at every turn. At the time of his July Fourth oration, New York still had not selected its first two senators. Under the Constitution, this decision fell to state...
Hamilton has often been extolled as the exponent of a rational foreign policy based on cool calculations of national self-interest. But his April 14 letter expressed his unswerving conviction that nat...
Growing up as a miniature adult, burdened with duties, he developed an exaggerated sense of responsibility that would be evident throughout his life.
Grant worded his message to remove any suspicion that he spoke for a particular religious denomination. Also buried in his statement was a courageous, farsighted plea for free, universal education for...
Grant refused to accept that. In a newspaper interview, he placed blame for the disaster squarely on Custer’s shoulders: I regard Custer’s massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himse...
Grant adopted unusual precautions, returning to the Willard Hotel twice daily for meals and staying indoors at night. When he set eyes on images of John Wilkes Booth, he immediately recognized the sin...
Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.
For that reason, historian Clinton Rossiter insisted that Hamilton’s works and words have been more consequential than those of any other American in shaping the Constitution under which we live.40
For some, the credo sounded blandly vacuous and Henry Adams wisecracked that Let Us Have Peace meant only Leave Me Alone.16
For five weeks in November and December 1798, he conferred in Philadelphia with Washington, who made his first resplendent return to the capital in twenty months, appearing in uniform on horseback. Ch...
For Washington, parties weren’t so much expressions of popular politics as their negation, denying the true will of the people as expressed through their chosen representatives.
For Hamilton, Jefferson’s desire to overturn the Judiciary Act was an insidious first step toward destroying the Constitution: Who is so blind as not to see that the right of the legislature to abolis...
Fisher Ames observed of Hamilton that the common people don’t want leaders whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads.
Early disappointments with people left Washington with a residual cynicism that was to jibe well with Hamilton’s views.