The underlying point of the letter was to notify Grant that, if Sherman’s brother John should be a candidate for president, it would be unnatural for me to oppose or qualify his purpose.9 When he rece...
Nothing in all history, William Lloyd Garrison wrote, equaled this wonderful, quiet, sudden transformation of four millions of human beings from . . . the auction-block to the ballot box.92 Grant term...
Not expecting to see you again before the Spring campaign opens, I wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particul...
More than anyone else, the omnipresent Hamilton galvanized, inspired, and scandalized the newborn nation, serving as a flash point for pent-up conflicts of class, geography, race, religion, and ideolo...
Months after leaving office, he wrote to the Bank of the United States and admitted that he did not know his account balance because he had lost his bank book—this from the man who had created the ban...
Meanwhile, the secretive Senate met upstairs in a chamber without a spectator section. For the first five years, senators conducted their business behind closed doors.
Many people knew that Hamilton, Madison, and Jay were the authors, but the trio proclaimed their authorship to only a chosen few and then mostly after the first bound volume was published in March 178...
Jefferson arrived in New York in the thick of the debate raging over assumption—Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume the twenty-five million dollars of state debt.
January 25, 1785, nineteen people gathered at the home of innkeeper John Simmons to form a society that would safeguard blacks who had already secured their freedom and try to win freedom for those st...
In Julia’s view, the Dent slaves were all very happy. At least they were in mamma’s time, though the young ones became somewhat demoralized about the beginning of the Rebellion, when all the comforts...
In 1870 he oversaw creation of the Justice Department, its first duty to bring thousands of anti-Klan indictments. By 1872 the monster had been slain, although its spirit resurfaced as the nation retr...
During his second day in office, he issued a circular to all customs collectors, demanding exact figures of the duties accumulated in each state. When they sent back suspiciously low numbers, Hamilton...
Around this time, Hamilton chatted with Burr about an appointment. Aware of bad blood between him and Washington, Hamilton asked Burr whether he could serve faithfully under the general. Burr unhesita...
Eight thousand Republicans crammed into Crosby’s Opera House for a veritable coronation of Ulysses S. Grant. To play on wartime memories, General John Black Jack Logan was designated to place his name...
In June 1789 some congressmen wanted Washington to have to gain senatorial approval to fire as well as hire executive officers—the Constitution was silent on the subject; the House duly approved that...