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Reproaching his slave carpenters, he said, "There is not to be found so idle a set of rascals."28 Of a slave named Betty who worked as a spinner in the mansion, he complained that "a more lazy, deceitful and impudent hussy is not to be found in the United States."29 He" --
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Ron Chernow |
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How to remedy this want of confidence? Hamilton submitted a twelve-point program, a fully realized vision of a financial system that reflected sustained thinking. Congress should create a central bank, owned half by the government and half by private individuals, that could issue money and make public and private loans. Drawing on European precedents, Hamilton cited the Bank of England and the French Council of Commerce as possible models. ..
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Ron Chernow |
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May 1780, he had fresh cause to meditate on the failings of Congress when news came of a calamitous defeat: the British had taken Charleston, capturing an American garrison of 5,400 soldiers, including John Laurens. The year 1780 was to be a dismal one for the patriots.
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Ron Chernow |
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adumbrate a plan that did not reflect popular opinion.
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Ron Chernow |
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He now subjected the Articles of Confederation to a searching critique. He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union.
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Ron Chernow |
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He favored granting Congress supreme power in war, peace, trade, finance, and foreign affairs.
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Ron Chernow |
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strong executives and endorsed single ministers for war, foreign affairs, finance, and the navy:
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Ron Chernow |
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respectable and prosperous or contemptible and miserable as a nation.
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Ron Chernow |
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He said that the first holders were not simply noble victims, nor were the current buyers simply predatory speculators. The original investors had gotten cash when they wanted it and had shown little faith in the country's future. Speculators, meanwhile, had hazarded their money and should be rewarded for the risk.
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Ron Chernow |
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The next incendiary issue was that some debt was owed by the thirteen states, some by the federal government. Hamilton decided to consolidate all the debt into a single form: federal debt.
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Ron Chernow |
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A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. It will be powerful cement of our union."12"
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Ron Chernow |
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The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves and to suffice for our own happiness."7"
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Ron Chernow |
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For that reason, historian Clinton Rossiter insisted that Hamilton's "works and words have been more consequential than those of any other American in shaping the Constitution under which we live."40"
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Ron Chernow |
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emissary to England to continue talks about the matters discussed. On October 7, Washington discussed such an appointment with Hamilton and Jay and accepted Hamilton's suggestion that Gouverneur Morris go to England. Within weeks of his confirmation as treasury secretary, Hamilton had already staked out a position as the administration's most influential figure on foreign policy.
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Ron Chernow |
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proper handling of government debt would permit America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also act as a tonic to the economy. Used as loan collateral, government bonds could function as money--and it was the scarcity of money, Hamilton observed, that had crippled the economy and resulted in severe deflation in the value of land. America was a young country rich in opportunity. It lacked only liquid capital, and government deb..
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Ron Chernow |
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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.
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Ron Chernow |
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In early July 1777, Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York fell to the British, prompting King George III to clap his hands and exclaim, "I have beat them! Beat all the Americans."
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Ron Chernow |
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subscribed
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Ron Chernow |
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This was the great paradox of his career: his optimistic view of America's potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature. His faith in Americans never quite matched his faith in America itself.
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Ron Chernow |
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Revenge, greed, resentment, envy, and patriotism made for an inflammatory mix.
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Ron Chernow |
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Hamilton articulated fundamental concepts that he later expanded upon in The Federalist Papers, concepts central to the future of American jurisprudence. In renting the property to Waddington, he declared, the British had abided by the law of nations, which allowed for the wartime use of property in occupied territory. New York's Trespass Act violated both the law of nations and the 1783 peace treaty with England, which had been ratified by..
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Ron Chernow |
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Would a treaty ratified by Congress trump state law? Could the judiciary override the legislature? And would America function as a true country or a loose federation of states? Hamilton left no doubt that states should bow to a central government: "It must be conceded that the legislature of one state cannot repeal the law of the United States."
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Ron Chernow |
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If Rutgers v. Waddington made Hamilton a controversial figure in city politics in 1784, the founding of the Bank of New York cast him in a more conciliatory role. The creation of New York's first bank was a formative moment in the city's rise as a world financial center. Banking was still a new phenomenon in America.
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Ron Chernow |
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Congress adopted the dollar as the official monetary unit in 1785, but for many years New York shopkeepers still quoted prices in pounds, shillings, and pence.
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Ron Chernow |
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The painting also pinpointed an important quirk of Washington's face: the lazy right eye that slid off into the corner while the left eye stared straight ahead. To prepare for the equestrian
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Ron Chernow |
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By 1784, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had outlawed slavery or passed laws for its gradual extinction
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Ron Chernow |
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When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, slaves constituted 40 percent of the population of his home state, Virginia.
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Ron Chernow |
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The intimacy of this group of nationalists allowed the talks to range far beyond commercial disputes to a richer, more trenchant critique of the crumbling Articles of Confederation.
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Ron Chernow |
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that countries follow their interests, not their sympathies--was engraved in Hamilton's memory, and he often reminded Jeffersonians later on that the French had fought for their own selfish purposes.
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Ron Chernow |
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The northern states were not about to override their southern brethren on the slavery issue. All along, the American Revolution had been premised on a tacit bargain that regional conflicts would be subordinated to the need for unity among the states.
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Ron Chernow |
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At noon on December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton, twenty-five, wed Elizabeth Schuyler, twenty-three, in the southeast parlor of the Schuyler mansion.
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Ron Chernow |
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While marking time in Princeton in July, Hamilton drafted a resolution that again called for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. This prescient document encapsulated many features of the 1787 Constitution: a federal government with powers separated among legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and a Congress with the power to levy taxes and raise an army.
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Ron Chernow |
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The constant session of Congress cannot be necessary in times of peace," said Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to replace it with a committee.64 Slowly but inexorably, the future battle lines were being drawn between those who wanted an energetic central government and those who wanted rights to revert to the states."
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Ron Chernow |
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sinister glow. "The jury will mark every muscle of"
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Ron Chernow |
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1783, General Henry Knox proposed creation of the Society of the
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Ron Chernow |
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America. During the war, the New York legislature had passed a series of laws that stripped Tories of their properties and privileges. The 1779 Confiscation Act provided for the seizure of Tory estates, and the 1782 Citation Act made it difficult for British creditors to collect money from republican debtors. In March 1783, the legislature enacted the statute that most engrossed Hamilton: the Trespass Act, which allowed patriots who had lef..
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Ron Chernow |
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May 12, 1784, the state legislature passed a law depriving most Loyalists of the vote for the next two years.
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Ron Chernow |
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Mocking Hancock as an inexperienced political lightweight, Republicans printed up a pamphlet entitled "Hancock's Political Achievements," a work that contained nothing but blank pages.79"
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Ron Chernow |
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Many things beyond the absence of Laurens troubled Hamilton that summer, especially the shortsighted failure of the states to grant mandatory taxing power to Congress in the Articles of Confederation, which had been approved as the new nation's governing charter on November 15, 1777, and submitted to the states for ratification.
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Ron Chernow |
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memories of Valley Forge and Morristown would powerfully affect the future political agendas of both Washington and Hamilton, who had to grapple with the defects of a weak central government
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Ron Chernow |
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in number 65, Hamilton visualized, with exceptional
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Ron Chernow |
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Tens of thousands of onlookers gaped in amazement as the shattered British troops marched out of Yorktown and, to the tune of an old English ballad, "The World Turned Upside Down,"
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Ron Chernow |
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e57d8f5
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The road leading to the Constitutional Convention was a long, circuitous one. It began at Mount Vernon in 1785 when commissioners from Maryland and Virginia resolved a heated dispute over navigation of the Potomac River.
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Ron Chernow |
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Washington was then unanimously elected president of the convention.
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Ron Chernow |