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401d8e6
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By no means confined to the south, slavery was well entrenched in much of the north. By 1784, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had outlawed slavery or passed laws for its gradual extinction--at the very least, New England's soil did not lend itself to large plantations--but New York and New Jersey retained significant slave populations. New York City, in particular, was identified with slave..
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Ron Chernow |
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735d42b
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The stress placed upon the Adams-Hamilton feud pointed up a deeper problem in the Federalist party, one that may explain its ultimate failure to survive: the elitist nature of its politics. James McHenry complained to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., of their adherents, "They write private letters to each other, but do nothing to give a proper direction to the public mind."50 The Federalists issued appeals to the electorate but did not try to mobilize ..
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Ron Chernow |
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7a69acf
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An episode at Congress Hall in January 1798 symbolized the acrimonious mood. Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont, a die-hard Republican, began to mock the aristocratic sympathies of Roger Griswold, a Federalist from Connecticut. When Griswold then taunted Lyon for alleged cowardice during the Revolution, Lyon spat right in his face. Griswold got a hickory cane and proceeded to thrash Lyon, who retaliated by taking up fire tongs and attac..
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Ron Chernow |
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abf2e3a
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He also saw human nature as insatiably curious and reserved his highest praise for minds that created "schemes or systems of truth."11"
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Ron Chernow |
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2345b09
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In "the general course of things, the popular views and even prejudices will direct the action of the rulers."
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Ron Chernow |
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2706f9e
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The rancor ushered in a golden age of literary assassination in American politics. No
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Ron Chernow |
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e981809
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Unlike Jefferson, Hamilton never saw the creation of America as a magical leap across a chasm to an entirely new landscape, and he always thought the New World had much to learn from the Old. Probably
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Ron Chernow |
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473ed49
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After the French and Indian War, the British vacillated about whether to swap all of Canada for the island of Guadeloupe; in the event the French toasted their own diplomatic cunning in retaining the sugar island.
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Ron Chernow |
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ee3400a
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Beckley had an unslakable thirst for political intelligence. Benjamin Rush said of Beckley that "he possesses a fund of information about men and things and, what is more in favor of his principles, he possesses the confidence of our two illustrious patriots, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison." 32 Beckley was constantly trying to dig up derogatory information to satisfy the Republican fantasy that Hamilton and Washington headed a pro-British mo..
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Ron Chernow |
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3be6472
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Clinton epitomized the flaws of the old confederation, and he denounced "the pernicious intrigues of a man high in office to preserve power and emolument to himself at the expense of the union, the peace, and the happiness of America."
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Ron Chernow |
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c6a3a52
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he warned that progressive accumulation of debt "is perhaps the NATURAL DISEASE of all Governments. And it is not easy to conceive anything more likely than this to lead to great and convulsive revolutions of Empire." 32"
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Ron Chernow |
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0da8c7b
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America, he argued, did not need to triumph decisively over the heavily taxed British: a war of attrition that eroded British credit would nicely do the trick. All the patriots had to do was plant doubts among Britain's creditors about the war's outcome.
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Ron Chernow |
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7d501c1
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To those who feared oppressive taxes, Hamilton made an argument that anticipated "supply-side economics" of the late twentieth century, saying that officials "can have no temptation to abuse this power, because the motive of revenue will check its own extremes. Experience has shown that moderate duties are more productive than high ones."10"
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Ron Chernow |
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07c52d5
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Early disappointments with people left Washington with a residual cynicism that was to jibe well with Hamilton's views.
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Ron Chernow |
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7531cac
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Tis with governments as with individuals, first impressions and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and character.
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Ron Chernow |
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1d20b8a
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Public infamy must restrain what the laws cannot.
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Ron Chernow |
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1f4231e
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the further one digs into the "Phocion" essays, the more apparent it becomes that Hamilton was engaging in devious manipulation of the southern vote. He was trying to turn southern slaveholders against Jefferson by asking whether they wanted a president who "promulgates his approbation of a speedy emancipation of their slaves." 63 Hamilton was trying to have it both ways. As an abolitionist, he wanted to expose Jefferson's disingenuous symp..
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Ron Chernow |
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e89000e
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task of government was not to stop selfish striving--a hopeless task--but to harness it for the public good.
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Ron Chernow |
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6040d93
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It was not an assembly of dogmatic extremists who sat in Windsor chairs for six weeks in the red-and-black brick structure known as Carpenters' Hall. Far from being bent on fighting for independence, these law-abiding delegates offered up a public prayer that war might be averted. They
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Ron Chernow |
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6dd090a
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such conduct in a man high in office argues greater attachment to his own power than to the public good and furnishes strong reason to suspect a dangerous predetermination to oppose whatever may tend to diminish the former, however it may promote the latter.
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Ron Chernow |
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6cd10d8
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the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace."54"
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Ron Chernow |
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61508a3
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The tone of politics had rapidly grown very harsh. Some poison was released into the American political atmosphere that was not put back into the bottle for a generation. As after any revolution, purists were vigilant for signs of ideological backsliding and departures from the one true faith.
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Ron Chernow |
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518b919
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Wars oftener proceed from angry and perverse passions than from cool calculations of interest.
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Ron Chernow |
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942e0dc
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Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I...would say...there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute.... I disclose to you without..
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Ron Chernow |
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3ce3688
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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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4b3cc7a
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Probably the first book that Hamilton absorbed was Malachy Postlethwayt's Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, a learned almanac of politics, economics, and geography that was crammed with articles about taxes, public debt, money, and banking. The dictionary took the form of two ponderous, folio-sized volumes, and it is touching to think of young Hamilton lugging them through the chaos of war. Hamilton would praise Postlethwayt as on..
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Ron Chernow |
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723e929
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Hamilton, wanting the bank to remain predominantly in private hands, advanced a theory that became a truism of central banking--that monetary policy was so liable to abuse that it needed some insulation from interfering politicians: "To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure that it shall be under a private not a public direction, under the guidance of individual in..
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Ron Chernow |
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10b517c
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it was England that shone as Hamilton's true lodestar in public finance. Back in the 1690s, the British had set up the Bank of England, enacted an excise tax on spirits, and funded its public debt--that is, pledged specific revenues to insure repayment of its debt. During the eighteenth century, it had vastly expanded that public debt. Far from weakening the country, it had produced manifold benefits. Public credit had enabled England to bu..
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Ron Chernow |
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3fb5848
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Burr, "His manner was patronizing. . . . As he revealed himself to my moral sense, I saw he was destitute of any fixed principles."
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Ron Chernow |
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2e3b972
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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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5ded400
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Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the U[nited] States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself. And contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still labouring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmur of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my rewards. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me m..
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Ron Chernow |
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4b222d3
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He railed against the baleful precedent that would be set if the legislature exiled an entire category of people without hearings or trials. If that happened, "no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common sense."
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Ron Chernow |
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1c3cea4
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He thought the sovereignty of the states only enfeebled the union. "The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress," he declared. He favored granting Congress supreme power in war, peace, trade, finance, and foreign affairs. 43 Instead of bickering congressional boards, he wanted strong executives and endorsed single ministers for war, foreign affairs, finance, and the navy: "There is always more decision, more dispatch, more secrecy..
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Ron Chernow |
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63428b2
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Adams had spent most of his vice presidency exiled in the Senate, casting a record thirty-one tiebreaking votes. Of the number-two post, he said wearily but indelibly that it was "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
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Ron Chernow |
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7c5defa
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Since Hamilton's abiding literary sin was prolixity, the time and length constraints imposed by The Federalist may have given a salutary concision to his writing. For
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Ron Chernow |
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662c841
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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."8"
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Ron Chernow |
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74c4120
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Of the two policies that Hamilton wished to promote--the federal assumption of state debt and the selection of New York as the capital--assumption was incomparably more important to him. It was the most effective and irrevocable way to yoke the states together into a permanent union.
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Ron Chernow |
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f277494
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it is a melancholy truth that the behaviour of many among us might serve as the severest satire upon the [human] species. It has been a compound of inconsistency, falsehood, cowardice, selfishness and dissimulation.
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Ron Chernow |
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7692a46
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When Hamilton, debilitated from illness, rejoined his comrades at Valley Forge in January 1778, he must have shuddered at the mud and log huts and the slovenly state of the men who shivered around the campfires. There was a dearth of gunpowder, tents, uniforms, and blankets. Hideous sights abounded: snow stained with blood from bare, bruised feet; the carcasses of hundreds of decomposing horses; troops gaunt from smallpox, typhus, and scurv..
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Ron Chernow |
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801d01d
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his optimistic view of America's potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature.
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Ron Chernow |
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4d89488
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Like other founders and thinkers of the Enlightenment, he was disturbed by religious fanaticism and tended to associate organized religion with superstition. While a member of Washington's military family, he wrote that "there never was any mischief but had a priest or a woman at the bottom." 7 As treasury secretary, he had said, "The world has been scourged with many fanatical sects in religion who, inflamed by a sincere but mistaken zeal,..
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Ron Chernow |
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ea6608c
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The financial turmoil on Wall Street and the William Duer debacle pointed up a glaring defect in Hamilton's political theory: the rich could put their own interests above the national interest.
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Ron Chernow |
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59a60a6
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Thomas Paine, who had arrived in Philadelphia two years earlier, provided Hamilton with a perfect model when he anonymously published Common Sense. The onetime corset maker and excise officer issued a resounding call for American independence that sold a stupendous 120,000 copies by year's end.
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Ron Chernow |
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14ca9c3
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Tis with governments as with individuals, first impressions and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and character." All"
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Ron Chernow |