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Grant was peppered with conflicting reports from white Democrats and black Republicans in Mississippi, who seemed to reside on different planets. One white complained to Grant about "ignorant"
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton's lifelong habit of talking sotto voce while pacing lent him an air of either inspiration or madness.) A
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Ron Chernow |
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It now seemed futile to try to halt a British advance upon the capital.
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Ron Chernow |
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mordant
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Ron Chernow |
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Confederate forces were being whittled down and could not be replaced by the South's smaller population.
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Ron Chernow |
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This falling-out was to be more than personal, for the rift between Hamilton and Madison precipitated the start of the two-party system in America.
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Ron Chernow |
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It often happens that our zeal is at variance with our understanding.
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Ron Chernow |
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appearances, not reality, ruled in politics, he
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Ron Chernow |
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The period of John Adams's presidency declined into a time of political savagery with few parallels in American history, a season of paranoia in which the two parties surrendered all trust in each other. Like other Federalists infected with war fever, Hamilton increasingly mistook dissent for treason and engaged in hyperbole. In one newspaper piece, he blasted the Jeffersonians as "more Frenchmen than Americans" and declared that to slake t..
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Ron Chernow |
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plebiscite on the American treaty and resorted to strong-arm
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Ron Chernow |
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The rich could put their own interests above the national interests.
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Ron Chernow |
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There is no virtue [in] America. That commerce which preside[d over] the birth and education of these states has [fitted] their inhabitants for the chain and . . . the only condition they sincerely desire is that it may be a golden one.
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton was more persuasive than he realized, and a delegation of business leaders soon approached him to subscribe to a "money-bank" that would thwart Livingston's land bank. "I was a little embarrassed how to act," Hamilton confessed sheepishly to Church, "but upon the whole I concluded it best to fall in with them." 51 Instead of launching a separate bank, Hamilton decided to represent Church and Wadsworth on the board of the new bank. ..
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Ron Chernow |
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Alexander McDougall, Nathanael Greene, Lord Stirling, and Washington
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Ron Chernow |
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extracts from a six-volume set of Plutarch's Lives. Thereafter, Hamilton always interpreted politics as an epic tale from Plutarch of lust and greed and people plotting for power. Since his political theory was rooted in his study of human nature, he took special delight in Plutarch's biographical sketches. And he carefully noted the creation of senates, priesthoods, and other elite bodies that governed the lives of the people. Hamilton was..
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Ron Chernow |
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I am aware that a man of real merit is never seen in so favourable a light as seen through the medium of adversity,
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Ron Chernow |
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There does not exist a more villainous calumniator or incendiary," he wrote.86"
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Ron Chernow |
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He was especially intent that the federal judiciary check any legislative abuses. In number 78, Hamilton introduced an essential concept, never made explicit in the Constitution: that the Supreme Court should be able to review and overturn legislation as unconstitutional.
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Ron Chernow |
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rude and petulant, his frank manner a cloak for infinite calculation. Clinton
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Ron Chernow |
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adumbrate a
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Ron Chernow |
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optimistic view of America's potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature. His
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton wanted to restrain abusive majorities and minorities.
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Ron Chernow |
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1690, the first capital, Jamestown, was swallowed whole by the sea during an
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Ron Chernow |
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1755, Knox decided to propagate the gospel and was sent
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Ron Chernow |
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With an exalted sense of his place in history, he viewed himself as a potential savior of the republic. He once told a friend, "Perhaps my sensibility is the effect of an exaggerated estimate of my services to the U[nited] States, but on such a subject every man will judge for himself."
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Ron Chernow |
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pernicious;
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Ron Chernow |
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Poison-pen artists on both sides wrote vitriolic essays that were overtly partisan, often paid scant heed to accuracy, and sought a visceral impact. The
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Ron Chernow |
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As after any revolution, purists were vigilant for signs of ideological backsliding and departures from the one true faith. The 1780s and 1790s were to be especially rich in feverish witch hunts for traitors who allegedly sought to reverse the verdict of the war. For the radicals of the day, revolutionary purity meant a strong legislature that would overshadow a weak executive and judiciary. For Hamilton, this could only invite legislative ..
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Ron Chernow |
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The 1800 triumph of Republicanism also meant the ascendancy of the slaveholding south. Three Virginia slaveholders--Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe--were to control the White House for the next twenty-four years. These aristocratic exponents of "democracy" not only owned hundreds of human beings but profited from the Constitution's least democratic features: the legality of slavery and the ability of southern states to count three-fifths of ..
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Ron Chernow |
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Also, by having autonomous conventions approve the Constitution, the new republic would derive its legitimacy not from the statehouses but directly from the citizenry, enabling federal law to supersede state legislation. With
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Ron Chernow |
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No etiquette yet defined civilized behavior between the parties.
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Ron Chernow |
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On January 21, 1793, more grisly events forced a reappraisal of the notion that the French Revolution was a romantic Gallic variant of the American Revolution. Louis XVI--who had aided the American Revolution and whose birthday had long been celebrated by American patriots--was guillotined for plotting against the Revolution. The death of Louis Capet--he had lost his royal title--was drenched in gore: schoolboys cheered, threw their hats al..
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Ron Chernow |
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At this, Hamilton dropped any pose of civility and chastised Monroe, saying "your representation is totally false."
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Ron Chernow |
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No American was to expend more prophetic verbiage in denouncing the French Revolution than Alexander Hamilton. The suspension of the monarchy and the September Massacres, Hamilton later told Lafayette, had "cured me of my goodwill for the French Revolution." 20 Hamilton refused to condone the carnage in Paris or separate means from ends. He did not think a revolution should cast off the past overnight or repudiate law, order, and tradition...
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Ron Chernow |
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With the Neutrality Proclamation, Hamilton continued to define his views on American foreign policy: that it should be based on self-interest, not emotional attachment; that the supposed altruism of nations often masked baser motives; that individuals sometimes acted benevolently, but nations seldom did. This austere, hardheaded view of human affairs likely dated to Hamilton's earliest observations of the European powers in the West Indies...
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Ron Chernow |
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80-82 Jane Street. Taken to a large, second-floor bedroom, Alexander Hamilton was never to emerge from the house.
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton's first act in Philadelphia paid homage to Franklin. The sage had opposed salaries for executive-branch officers, hoping such a measure would produce civic-minded leaders, not government officials feeding at the public trough. Others
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Ron Chernow |
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demagogue.
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Ron Chernow |
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If Jefferson enunciated the more ample view of political democracy, Hamilton possessed the finer sense of economic opportunity. He was the messenger from a future that we now inhabit. We have left behind the rosy agrarian rhetoric and slaveholding reality of Jeffersonian democracy and reside in the bustling world of trade, industry, stock markets, and banks that Hamilton envisioned.
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Ron Chernow |
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I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors. The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this, because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults or remove the prejudices which are imbibed against him.
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self-improvement
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Ron Chernow |
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It is the food of my hopes, the object of my wishes, the only enjoyment of my life" - Alexander Hamilton"
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Ron Chernow |
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It was all very pleasant and balmy, supremely beautiful and languid, if you were white, were rich, and turned a blind eye to the black population expiring in the canebrakes.
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Ron Chernow |
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23 Destiny had now conferred upon Washington a pivotal place in
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Ron Chernow |
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along with
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Ron Chernow |