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Kitty] was the type of woman Hamilton found irresistible: pretty, coquettish, somewhat spoiled, and always ready for flirtatious banter.
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Ron Chernow |
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From later descriptions, however, we know that [Alexander Hamilton] stood about five foot seven and had a fair complexion, auburn hair, rosy cheeks, and a wide, well-carved mouth. His nose, with its flaring nostrils and irregular line, was especially strong and striking, his jaw chiseled and combative. Slim and elegant, with thin shoulders and shapely legs, he walked with a buoyant lightness, and his observant, flashing eyes darted about wi..
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Ron Chernow |
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After Seabury rebutted "A Full Vindication", Hamilton struck back with "The Farmer Refuted," an eighty page tour de force..."
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Ron Chernow |
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Earlier generations of biographers had to rely on only a meager portion of his voluminous output.
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Ron Chernow |
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all show of decorum
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Ron Chernow |
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pork with a little change of the sauce?
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Ron Chernow |
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For you know me well enough, my good Sir, to be persuaded that I am not guilty of affectation when I tell you it is my great and sole desire to live and die, in peace and retirement, on my own farm.
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Ron Chernow |
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scion of a blue-ribbon Scottish family: "The"
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Ron Chernow |
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adumbrate a plan
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Ron Chernow |
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8294824
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So grave were the interstate tensions over trade that Nathaniel Gorham, named president of Congress in 1786, feared that clashes between New York and its neighbors might degenerate into civil war. Similarly acrimonious trade disputes erupted between other states with major seaports and neighbors who imported goods through them. The states were arrogating a right that properly belonged to a central government: the right to formulate trade po..
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Ron Chernow |
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The same day, Hamilton wrote to James McHenry
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Ron Chernow |
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All the patriots had to do was plant doubts among Britain's creditors about the war's outcome. "By stopping the progress of their conquests and reducing them to an unmeaning and disgraceful defensive, we destroy the national expectation of success from which the ministry draws their resources." 11 This was an extremely subtle, sophisticated analysis for a young man immersed in wartime details for four years: America could defeat the British..
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton continued to stew about the Articles of Confederation, which had been ratified belatedly by the last state on February 27, 1781. Hamilton thought this loose framework a prescription for rigor mortis. There was no federal judiciary, no guiding executive, no national taxing power, and no direct power over people as individuals, only as citizens of the states. In Congress, each state had one vote, and nine of the thirteen states had t..
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Ron Chernow |
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equaled. If Jefferson provided the essential poetry of American political discourse, Hamilton established the prose of American statecraft.
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Ron Chernow |
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dishclout
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Ron Chernow |
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manner.
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Ron Chernow |
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Gordian knot
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Ron Chernow |
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government.
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Ron Chernow |
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Both Jefferson and Adams detested people who earned a living shuffling financial paper, and when Adams launched a bitter tirade in later years against the iniquitous banking system, Jefferson agreed that the business was "an infinity of successive felonious larcenies." 9 That banks could serve any economic purpose--that they could generate prosperity that might enrich the few but also lubricate the wheels of commerce--seemed alien to both m..
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Ron Chernow |
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Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, sixteen, and Alexander, fourteen, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless.
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Ron Chernow |
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Alexander Hamilton may have been musing upon his mother's marriage to Lavien when he later observed, 'Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other, who have souls capable of relishing the sweets of friendship and sensibilities...But it's a dog of [a] life when two dissonant tempers meet.
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton and his men ran so fast that they almost overtook the sappers, who were snapping off the edges of the sharpened tree branches and opening a breach through which the infantry rushed. Hamilton, hopping on the shoulder of a kneeling soldier, sprang onto the enemy parapet and summoned his men to follow. Their password was "Rochambeau"--"a good one," said one American, because it "sounds like 'Rush-on-boys' when pronounced quick." 36 On..
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Ron Chernow |
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Mills lashed out at Barbot as "an impertinent puppy"--the sort of fighting words that prompted duels.35"
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Ron Chernow |
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In his final months, Grant showed exceptional kindness to Terrell, furnishing him with a glowing recommendation letter for use after his death so he could find employment as a War Department messenger. Terrell's son Robert had just graduated cum laude from Harvard. While he was there, Grant had provided him with a beautiful letter to obtain summer work in the Boston Custom House: "My special interest in him is from the fact that his father-..
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Ron Chernow |
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af0f5b3
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Hamilton said, he would follow the classic path of a populist demagogue: "I would mount the hobbyhorse of popularity, I would cry out usurpation, danger"
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Ron Chernow |
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At one point, Bill suggested that if John didn't find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made "a cold chill" run down his spine, Rockefeller later said.27 Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down all discouragement. "I was working every day at my business--the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this every day."
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Ron Chernow |
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Its couplets included these lines: "Before no mortal ever knew / A love like mine so tender, true...No joy unmixed my bosom warms / But when my angel's in my arms." --
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Ron Chernow |
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religions.
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Ron Chernow |
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To believe America able to withstand England is a dreadful infatuation.
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Ron Chernow |
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Perhaps most problematic was the controversial bargain that Alexander Hamilton had struck with the Constitution, dedicating his life to what he deemed a flawed document.
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Ron Chernow |
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panegyric
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Ron Chernow |
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bibulous,
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Ron Chernow |
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parvenu
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Ron Chernow |
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taciturnity.
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Ron Chernow |
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At a time of tremendous ideological cleavages,
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton extra
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Ron Chernow |
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could see masts of submerged ships poking up from the water--and seeded the East River with spiked obstacles to thwart vessels.
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Ron Chernow |
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For part of his Parisian stay, Jefferson was joined by his two daughters. The younger one, Polly, arrived in 1787 in the company of his light-skinned fourteen-year-old slave, Sally Hemings, who was called "Dashing Sally" at Monticello and was later described by another slave as "mighty near white" and "very handsome" with "long straight hair down her back."19 Jefferson had inherited the Hemings family via his wife, and it is now presumed th..
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton had analyzed his own rejection thus: "I am a stranger in this country. I have no property here, no connections. If I have talents and integrity...these are justly deemed very spurious titles in these enlightened days."83"
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Ron Chernow |
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If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
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Ron Chernow |
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poltroon,
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Ron Chernow |
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6a57f00
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His account books reflect a concern with fashion, as shown by periodic visits to a French tailor, and his sartorial elegance is confirmed in portraits. In one painting, he wears a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and gilt-edged lapels, his neck swathed delicately in a ruffled lace jabot.
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Ron Chernow |
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As in the American south, an exaggerated sense of romantic honor may have been an unconscious way for slaveholders to flaunt their moral superiority, purge pent-up guilt, and cloak the brutish nature of their trade.
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Ron Chernow |
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a face so broad and ruddy that he was dubbed "Bacon Face."
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Ron Chernow |