Grant had overwhelmingly won the electoral vote, and had garnered the largest popular majority of the century, nearly 56 percent of the vote, the biggest percentage between Andrew Jackson and Theodore...
Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him.50
From the First Philippic of Demosthenes, he plucked a passage that summed up his conception of a leader as someone who would not pander to popular whims. As a general marches at the head of his troops...
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 Hamilton, his encounters with the two obdurate generals strengthened his preference for strict hierarchy and centralized command as the only way to accomplish things—a view that was to find its po...
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 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,...
Everyone found Grant modest and retiring, an altogether likable fellow. His only dissipation was in owning a fast horse, said a regimental colleague. He always liked to have a fine nag, and he paid hi...
Endorsing still another form of government activism, Hamilton claimed that nothing had assisted Britain’s industry more than its network of public roads and canals. He therefore touted internal improv...
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...
Each author was assigned an area corresponding to his expertise. Jay naturally handled foreign relations. Madison, versed in the history of republics and confederacies, covered much of that ground. As...
During one ghastly period in 1779, the continental dollar shed half its value in three weeks.
Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things … fail because we lack concentration—the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything el...
Days later, Melancton Smith finally broke the deadlock when he endorsed the Constitution if Congress would promise to consider some amendments. Paying indirect tribute to Hamilton, Smith credited the...
Cornwallis had grown so desperate that he infected blacks with smallpox and forced them to wander toward enemy lines in an attempt to sicken the opposing forces.
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...
Clearly, the U.S. government condoned something that, in modern phraseology, could be termed industrial espionage. Building upon this precedent, Hamilton put the full authority of the Treasury behind...