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...
I shall conclude [by] saying I wish there was a war. Alex. Hamilton.
I am aware that a man of real merit is never seen in so favourable a light as seen through the medium of adversity,
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 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 had a great general’s ability to focus on his goals and brush aside obstacles as petty distractions. You can abuse me, you can strike me, Rockefeller said, so long as you let me have my own way.
He cleverly assumed that he was addressing loyal people and made common cause with them: I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your friend and fellow-citizen, not to injure or annoy you, but...
Hamilton’s life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up. He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succe...
Hamilton seldom published under his own name and drew on a bewildering array of pseudonyms. Such pen names were sometimes transparent masks through which the public readily identified prominent politi...
Hamilton refused to drop his involvement in the Manumission Society even as his renown grew and his commitments vastly multiplied. He kept up his connection as a legal adviser until his death. Was thi...
Hamilton knew the symbolic value of rapid decision making and phenomenal energy. As he wrote during the Revolution, If a Government appears to be confident of its own powers, it is the surest way to i...
Hamilton hit the ground running: the very next day, he arranged a fifty-thousand-dollar loan for the federal government from the Bank of New York. The day after that, a Sunday, he worked all day at th...
Hamilton had always regarded the judiciary as the final fortress of liberty and the most vulnerable branch of government. John Marshall remedied that deficiency, and many of the great Supreme Court de...
Hamilton drew freely on statements he had made at the Constitutional Convention to distinguish his elective monarch from a king. The British king, he pointed out, was hereditary, could not be removed...
Hamilton believed that the United States should preemptively seize Spanish Florida and Louisiana, lest they fall into hostile French hands. To accomplish this, he directed General James Wilkinson to a...
Hamilton articulated fundamental concepts that he later expanded upon in The Federalist Papers, concepts central to the future of American jurisprudence. In renting the property to Waddington, he decl...
Hamilton argued that the security of liberty and property were inseparable and that governments should honor their debts because contracts formed the basis of public and private morality: States, like...
Hamilton and others had argued that the Constitution transcended state governments and directly expressed the will of the American people. Hence, the Constitution began We the People of the United Sta...
Hamilton and Madison were again pitted in a fundamental contest over whether the executive or legislative branch would run American foreign policy. Hamilton was relieved when Washington denied Congres...
Hamilton and Madison came to symbolize opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the time of the Federalist essays, however, they were so close in style and outlook that scholars find it hard to sor...