Like other founding fathers, Hamilton inhabited two diametrically opposed worlds. There was the Olympian sphere of constitutional debate and dignified discourse—the way many prefer to remember these s...
It was not until February 11, 1801, that votes cast by presidential electors in the various states were actually opened in the Senate chamber, confirming what was already common knowledge: that Jeffer...
It quickly became apparent that a new president could not be named because three of the contested states with warring governments—South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—filed one set of election certi...
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me de...
In urging the court to invalidate the Trespass Act, Hamilton expounded the all-important doctrine of judicial review—the notion that high courts had a right to scrutinize laws and if necessary declare...
In times of such commotion as the present, while the passions of men are worked up to an uncommon pitch, there is great danger of fatal extremes. The same state of the passions which fits the multitud...
In theory, the convention had a mandate only to revise the Articles of Confederation. Any delegates who took this circumscribed mission at face value were soon rudely disabused. On May 30, Edmund Rand...
In the end, nobody would do more than Alexander Hamilton to infuse life into this parchment and make it the working mandate of the American government.
In retirement, Adams mused that if Burr had become a brigadier general in 1798, it might have tethered him to the Federalists and assured his own reelection in 1800. Indeed, Adams was right in one res...
In public exigencies, there is hardly anything more prejudicial than excessive caution, timidity and dilatoriness, as there is nothing more beneficial than vigour, enterprise and expedition.
In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of; I think I have arguments that will easily convert her to mine.
In mid-February 1804, Hamilton journeyed to Albany and pleaded for a new trial before the state supreme court.
In general, however, their two voices blended admirably together.
In discussing this Romanian bloodletting with Simon Wolf, Grant declared that respect for human rights was the first duty of any head of state and that blacks and Jews should be elevated to a rank of...
In defending his plan, Hamilton did not speak just in arid technical terms. He talked of justice, equity, patriotism, and national honor. His funding system was premised upon a simple concept: that th...
In a question of veracity between U.S. Grant and Andrew Johnson, between a soldier whose honor is as untarnished as the sun, and a President who has betrayed every friend, and broken every promise, th...
In a little more than two years, they had suffered their father’s disappearance and their mother’s death, reducing them to orphans and throwing them upon the mercy of friends, family, and community.
In March 1780, Congress tried to restore monetary order by issuing one new dollar in exchange for forty old ones,
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 February 1866, he testified before Congress to oppose suffrage for former slaves: My own opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the right of suffrage wo...