Frederick Douglass, who had entertained hopes for the Haitian post, graciously conceded defeat. Your appointment, he told Bassett, is a grand achievement for yourself and for our whole people.
Franklin wanted a unicameral legislature and an executive council in lieu of a president. He also opposed a presidential veto on legislation, thinking it would lead to executive corruption till it end...
For the remainder of the gubernatorial campaign, Hamilton issued open letters to the electorate, and at Clinton campaign rallies his essays were hurled under the table as marks of contempt. In shaping...
For Hamilton the American Revolution was a practical workshop of economic and political theory, providing critical object lessons and cautionary tales that charted the course for his career.
Fisher Ames, always a shrewd observer of the scene, mused that a spirit of faction . . . must soon come to a crisis. He foresaw that congressional Republicans would discard their comparatively decorou...
Few First Ladies—and the name wasn’t yet commonly used—have so reveled in the White House or developed such a proprietary feeling about it. Eight happy years I spent there—so happy! Julia would remini...
Far more than just a technical document, the Report on Manufactures was a prescient statement of American nationalism.
Far from hiding Black Jack, the irascible John Custis doted on him, and when the little boy was five, he submitted a petition to the governor to free the boy christened John but commonly called Jack,...
England refused to acknowledge the traditional doctrine free ships make free goods—i.e., that neutral vessels had a right to carry all cargo save munitions and enter the ports of belligerent countries...
Editing a Federalist newspaper in Richmond, he revealed that Jefferson, while vice president, had subsidized him to malign Adams and Hamilton. When Jefferson denied this, Callender published documents...
Consequential to the election outcome were the many private contacts in the capital between southern Democrats and Hayes’s northern Republican supporters. At Wormley’s Hotel on February 26, five Hayes...
Conforming to tradition, the convention sent a delegation to Grant with official notice of his nomination. In return, he scratched out a statement that mostly dealt in standard rhetoric, concluding wi...
Citing private reasons—Morris was already lurching down a long, slippery path that led to bankruptcy and debtors’ prison—Morris politely declined the offer.
Chase was a tall, ungainly man with a resemblance to Dr. Samuel Johnson and a face so broad and ruddy that he was dubbed Bacon Face.
Cettie was equally vigilant. When the children clamored for bicycles, John suggested buying one for each child. No, said Cettie, we will buy just one for all of them. But, my dear, John protested, tri...
Callender denied the authenticity of Maria Reynolds’s billets-doux to Hamilton and conjectured that Hamilton had forged them, filling them with spelling errors to make them seem plausible. Quite under...
Both Hamilton and Madison were rational men who assumed that people often acted irrationally because of ambition and avarice. Madison wrote, If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
Beckley had an unslakable thirst for political intelligence. Benjamin Rush said of Beckley that he possesses a fund of information about men and things and, what is more in favor of his principles, he...
Because the Constitution made no mention of a cabinet, Washington had to invent it. At first, this executive council consisted of just three men: Hamilton as secretary of the treasury, Jefferson as se...
Bankrupt when Hamilton took office, the United States now enjoyed a credit rating equal to that of any European nation. He had laid the groundwork for both liberal democracy and capitalism and helped...