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2ef34bc
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McKean of Pennsylvania swore
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Ron Chernow |
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0d4ab06
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In time, the government redefined the rules of the capitalist game to tame trusts and preserve competition, but as John D. Rockefeller set about building his fortune, the absence of clear-cut rules probably aided, at first, the creative vigor of the new industrial economy.
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Ron Chernow |
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Throughout his life, Rockefeller was wounded deeply by accusations that he was a cold, malignant personality.
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Ron Chernow |
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1a82a8d
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Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it.... As soon as you can, get some one whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels, and think out some way for the Standard Oil to make some money."25"
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Ron Chernow |
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2332e25
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His victory over the Cleveland refiners would be the first but also the most controversial campaign of his career.
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Ron Chernow |
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ba3a1a3
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As a team, they were unbeatable and far more than the sum of their parts.
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Ron Chernow |
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b221792
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In fact, Washington wasn't nonchalant and could be exacting and quick to take offense.
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Ron Chernow |
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ff494b6
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The self-control was something achieved, not inherited, and often masked combustible emotions that could explode in fury.
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Ron Chernow |
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d59c8a0
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Morristown,
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Ron Chernow |
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367fa00
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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. At
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Ron Chernow |
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164a5c2
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too
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Ron Chernow |
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6af84d5
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Hamilton's crowded years as treasury secretary scarcely exhaust the epic story of his short life, which was stuffed with high drama. From his illegitimate birth on Nevis to his bloody downfall in Weehawken, Hamilton's life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up. He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succeeds despite a lack of proper birth an..
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Ron Chernow |
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60ffb97
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He made a cryptic statement to Hewitt that entered into Rockefeller folklore: "I have ways of making money you know nothing about."
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Ron Chernow |
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43e6993
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politics. A prominent antifederalist had already warned him that "rather than to adopt the Constitution, I would risk a government of Jew, Turk or infidel."83"
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Ron Chernow |
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170647f
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To ensure that he won, he submitted to games only where he could dictate the rules.
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Ron Chernow |
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be8beb9
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chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness),
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Ron Chernow |
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ac26dad
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It may be that Hamilton's preference for a diversified economy of manufacturing and agriculture originated in his youthful reflections on the avoidable poverty he had witnessed in the Caribbean.
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Ron Chernow |
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In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of; I think I have arguments that will easily convert her to mine.
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Ron Chernow |
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0d0a61e
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Perhaps the true legacy of his boyhood was an equivocal one: he came to detest the tyranny embodied by the planters and their authoritarian rule, while also fearing the potential uprisings of the disaffected slaves. The twin specters of despotism and anarchy were to haunt him for the rest of his life.
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Ron Chernow |
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5b7a086
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On July 6, while Captain Hamilton wandered about trying to find a purse with money that he had lost--he sometimes had a touch of the absentminded genius--the local press announced independence.
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Ron Chernow |
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077d696
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The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let the money be my slave and not make myself a slave to money.
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Ron Chernow |
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d4f9914
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Thinking the move suicidal, Grant believed the South would stop short of the "awful leap" of secession.41"
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Ron Chernow |
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1d41469
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In retrospect, it was clear that he had found his calling as a fearless, swashbuckling intellectual warrior who excelled in bare-knuckled controversy.
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Ron Chernow |
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15b6b5d
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D. Rockefeller drew strength by simplifying reality and strongly believed that excessive reflection upon unpleasant but unalterable events only weakened one's resolve in the face of enemies.
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Ron Chernow |
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cf38363
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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 Roosevelt.
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Ron Chernow |
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e184379
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Once Hamilton was initiated into the cause of American liberty, his life acquired an even more headlong pace that never slackened.
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Ron Chernow |
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43408fd
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In times of such commotion as the present, while the passions of men are worked up to an uncommon pitch, there is great danger of fatal extremes. The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority. The due medium is hardly to be found among the more inte..
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Ron Chernow |
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b400b99
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The fifty-five delegates representing twelve states--the renegade Rhode Island boycotted the convention--scarcely constituted a cross section of America. They were white, educated males and mostly affluent property owners.
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Ron Chernow |
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72703eb
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The most damning and hypocritical critiques of his allegedly aristocratic economic system emanated from the most aristocratic southern slaveholders, who deflected attention from their own nefarious deeds by posing as populist champions and assailing the northern financial and mercantile interests aligned with Hamilton.
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Ron Chernow |
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daee068
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The winning candidate needed 379 votes. On the first ballot, Grant drew a narrow lead of 304 votes versus 284 for Blaine, 93 for Sherman, 34 for George F. Edmunds of Vermont and--confirming Grant's worst fears--30 for Washburne. These last votes, the unkindest cut for Grant, denied him an insuperable lead. The convention then wore on through many wearisome ballots, marked by trifling changes in the vote count. On the third ballot, two new n..
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Ron Chernow |
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bf1d7cd
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fillip
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Ron Chernow |
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69d70aa
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Rawlins let loose a stemwinder of a speech that lasted forty-five minutes. His voice throbbing with emotion, he thundered, "I have been a Democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics. It is simply country or no country. I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise is passed."
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Ron Chernow |
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0a962b3
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When pastor John Heyl Vincent dropped by to transmit his hope that Ulysses "might be preserved from all harm and restored to his family," Julia fairly burst out with a new fantasy: "Dear me! I hope he will get to be a major-general or something big!"75"
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Ron Chernow |
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68e1af8
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When he exhausted his list, he simply started over from the top and visited several firms two or three times.
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Ron Chernow |
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858f043
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Another boy might have been crestfallen, but Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.
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Ron Chernow |
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09948b3
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Hamilton did not think Burr would be a harmless, lackadaisical president. "He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing," Hamilton told Gouverneur Morris. 16 From his legal practice, Hamilton knew that Burr had exorbitant debts and might be susceptible to bribes from foreign governments. He briefed Federalists about the scandals involving Burr and the Holland Company and the..
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Ron Chernow |
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7390d07
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What makes Flagler's ethics consequential for Rockefeller's career was that he was the mastermind of many negotiations with the railroads--the single most controversial aspect of Standard Oil history.
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Ron Chernow |
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b23772a
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Despite Grant's best efforts at Appomattox, the breach of the Civil War never healed but became deeply embedded in American political culture.
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Ron Chernow |
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b67481a
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My family is American," Ulysses later declared proudly, "and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral."
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chernow
grant
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Ron Chernow |
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36f6d29
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laird
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Ron Chernow |
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ab699c4
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doggerel
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Ron Chernow |
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87dd64d
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bibulous
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Ron Chernow |
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79b5eca
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Hamilton then picked up a slim volume on the table and turned it over in his hands. "Ah, this is the constitution," he said. "Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instrument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind us no longer."
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Ron Chernow |
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9b1d2cc
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valerian,
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Ron Chernow |