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He recoiled at the cowardice and selfishness he saw rampant in the New York legislature. "The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people," he told Morris. "In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly." 15 Increasingly Hamilton despaired of pure democracy, of politicians simply catering to the popular will, and favored educated leaders who would enlighten the people a..
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Ron Chernow |
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258ba9b
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The issue of press freedom was all the more important because the spirit of faction, "that mortal poison to our land," had spread through America. He worried that a certain unnamed party might impose despotism: "To watch the progress of such endeavours is the office of a free press. To give us early alarm and put us on our guard against the encroachments of power. This then is a right of the utmost importance, one for which, instead of yiel..
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Ron Chernow |
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0d1b074
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Hamilton was that rare revolutionary: a master administrator and as competent a public servant as American politics would ever produce. One historian has written, "Hamilton was an administrative genius" who "assumed an influence in Washington's cabinet which is unmatched in the annals of the American cabinet system."73 The position demanded both a thinker and a doer, a skilled executive and a political theorist, a system builder who could d..
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Ron Chernow |
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84aa601
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While other Americans dreamed of a brand-new society that would expunge all traces of effete European civilization, Hamilton humbly studied those societies for clues to the formation of a new government. 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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7745908
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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 their captive populations in calculating their electoral votes. (Without this so-called federal ratio, John Adams would have defeated Thomas Jefferson in 1800.) The Constitution did more than just tolerate slavery: it actively rewarded it. Timothy Pickering was to ..
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Ron Chernow |
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e765ede
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Paranoid thinking seems to be a legacy of all revolutions, with purists searching for signs of heresy, and the American experience was no exception.
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Ron Chernow |
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fec2431
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Where Hamilton looked at the world through a dark filter and had a better sense of human limitations, Jefferson viewed the world through a rose-colored prism and had a better sense of human potentialities. Both Hamilton and Jefferson believed in democracy, but Hamilton tended to be more suspicious of the governed and Jefferson of the governors. A strange blend of dreamy idealist and manipulative politician, Jefferson was a virtuoso of the s..
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Ron Chernow |
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bcf5a90
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For Hamilton, the Jay Treaty victory represented the culmination of his work with Washington. By settling all outstanding issues left over from the Revolution, the treaty removed the last impediments to improved relations with England and promised sustained prosperity.
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Ron Chernow |
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1a9d512
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The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
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Ron Chernow |
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5117f7a
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In his essays on the need for executive-branch vigor, Hamilton continually invoked the king of England as an example of what should be avoided, especially the monarch's lack of accountability. Every president "ought to be personally responsible for his behaviour in office."
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Ron Chernow |
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1ef1a06
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basis. Because many Americans still bartered, Hamilton wanted to encourage the use of coins. As part of his campaign to foster a market economy, Hamilton suggested introducing a wide variety of coins, including gold and silver dollars, a ten-cent silver piece, and copper coins of a cent or half cent. He wasn't just thinking of rich people; small coins would benefit the poor "by enabling them to purchase in small portions and at a more reaso..
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Ron Chernow |
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cf09ef9
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Even amid a state of open warfare, these law-abiding men felt obligated to issue a formal document, giving a dispassionate list of their reasons for secession.
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Ron Chernow |
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his view that in framing a government "every man ought to be supposed a knave and to have no other end in all his actions but private interests." The 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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a61c2f9
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Rather than make peace with John Adams, he was ready, if necessary, to blow up the Federalist party and let Jefferson become president. The
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Ron Chernow |
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729f461
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Hamilton saw America's essential nature being forged in the throes of battle, and that made honest action imperative.
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Ron Chernow |
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3283596
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polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity,
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Ron Chernow |
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Actually, Hamilton's exploding cannon may have killed as many as six of his men and wounded four or five others. Some critics blamed inadequate training for the mishap, but the general dissipation of troops addicted to whoring and drinking was more likely to blame.
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Ron Chernow |
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dfef382
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Let it be remembered that there are no large plains for the two armies to meet in and decide the conquest. . . . The circumstances of our country put it in our power to evade a pitched battle. It will be better policy to harass and exhaust the soldiery by frequent skirmishes and incursions than to take the open field with them, by which means they would have the full benefit of their superior regularity and skills. Americans are better qual..
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Ron Chernow |
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ea1c85d
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If the party elected Burr, it would be exposed "to the disgrace of a defeat in an attempt to elevate to the first place in the government one of the worst men in the community."14 Hamilton had never spoken about Adams and Jefferson in these terms. "The appointment of Burr as president would disgrace our country abroad," he informed Sedgwick. "No agreement with him could be relied upon."15"
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Ron Chernow |
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4666732
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the Senate's composition introduced a lasting political bias in American life in favor of smaller states. Left
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Ron Chernow |
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070c89f
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To Jefferson we owe the self-congratulatory language of Fourth of July oratory, the evangelical conviction that America serves as a beacon to all humanity. Jefferson told John Dickinson, "Our revolution and its consequences will ameliorate the condition of man over a great portion of the globe." 54 At least on paper, Jefferson possessed a more all-embracing view of democracy than Hamilton, who was always frightened by a sense of the fickle ..
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Ron Chernow |
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4bad097
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When you indulge in wine let [it] be sparingly--never go beyond three glasses--but by no means every day.
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Ron Chernow |
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bfe457a
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The Federalist has been extolled as both a literary and political masterpiece. Theodore Roosevelt commented "that it is on the whole the greatest book" dealing with practical politics."
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Ron Chernow |
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ae768b0
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The strident tone of "The Stand" reflects the polarization that had gripped America over the French crisis. Feelings ran so high that Jefferson told one correspondent, "Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid meeting and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch hats."
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Ron Chernow |
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f9fbfe0
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In public exigencies, there is hardly anything more prejudicial than excessive caution, timidity and dilatoriness, as there is nothing more beneficial than vigour, enterprise and expedition.
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Ron Chernow |
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55482a3
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Hamilton, back by August 13, dove into a debate that passionately engaged him: immigration. He opposed any attempt to restrict membership in Congress to native-born Americans or to stipulate a residency period before immigrants could qualify for it.
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Ron Chernow |
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78647f7
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if Clinton was taken prisoner "it would be our misfortune, since the British government could not find another commander so incompetent to send in his place."
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Ron Chernow |
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3c37bd9
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The American Revolution and its aftermath coincided with two great transformations in the late eighteenth century. In the political sphere, there had been a repudiation of royal rule, fired by a new respect for individual freedom, majority rule, and limited government. If Hamilton made distinguished contributions in this sphere, so did Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. In contrast, when it came to the parallel economic upheavals of t..
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Ron Chernow |
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074f87c
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It is puzzling that Aaron Burr is sometimes classified among the founding fathers. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton all left behind papers that run to dozens of thick volumes, packed with profound ruminations. They fought for high ideals. By contrast, Burr's editors have been able to eke out just two volumes of his letters, many full of gossip, tittle-tattle, hilarious anecdotes, and racy asides about his sexual..
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Ron Chernow |
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96711ee
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Hamilton drew freely on statements he had made at the Constitutional Convention to distinguish his "elective monarch" from a king. The British king, he pointed out, was hereditary, could not be removed by impeachment, had an absolute veto over the laws of both houses, and could dissolve Parliament, declare war, make treaties, confer titles of nobility, and bestow church offices. It clearly exasperated Hamilton that critics were drawing faci..
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Ron Chernow |
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7b8c9be
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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.
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Ron Chernow |
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e9b545d
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Mirabeau, the French revolutionary politician, once observed of Talleyrand that he "would sell his soul for money and he would be right, for he would be exchanging dung for gold."32 Napoleon expressed this sentiment more concisely, calling Talleyrand "a pile of shit in a silk stocking."
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Ron Chernow |
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75a32b1
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The four to six young aides usually slept in one room, often two to a bed, then worked long days in a single room with chairs crowded around small wooden tables. Washington typically kept a small office off to the side. During busy periods, the aides sometimes wrote and copied one hundred letters per day, an exhausting grind
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Ron Chernow |
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797f573
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Hamilton has often been extolled as the exponent of a rational foreign policy based on cool calculations of national self-interest. But his April 14 letter expressed his unswerving conviction that nations, transported by strong emotion, often miscalculate their interests: "Wars oftener proceed from angry and perverse passions than from cool calculations of interest."
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Ron Chernow |
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9bb1340
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he worried that a separate senate, elected solely by propertied voters, will "degenerate into a body purely aristocratical."
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Ron Chernow |
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801b121
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Nevertheless, it frustrated him that after this exhaustive investigation his opponents still rehashed the stale charges of misconduct. He had learned a lesson about propaganda in politics and mused wearily that "no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false." If a charge was made often enough, people assumed in the end "that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent." 34 Once"
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Ron Chernow |
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ec5c1e0
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Hamilton lacked the temperament of a true-blue revolutionary. He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton's lifelong task was to try to straddle and resolve this contradiction and to balance liberty and order.
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Ron Chernow |
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ecb029d
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Unlike Franklin or Jefferson, he never learned to subdue his opponents with a light touch or a sly, artful, understated turn of phrase.
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Ron Chernow |
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Of the British prime minister, Lord North, he wrote with exceptional acuity: The Premier has advanced too far to recede with safety: he is deeply interested to execute his purpose, if possible.... In common life, to retract an error even in the beginning is no easy task. Perseverance confirms us in it and rivets the difficulty.... To this we may add that disappointment and opposition inflame the minds of men and attach them still more to th..
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Ron Chernow |
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ff6646f
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In the next poem, Hamilton has suddenly metamorphosed into a jaded rake, who begins with a shocking, Swiftian opening line: 'Celia's an artful little slut.
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Ron Chernow |
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d140d4c
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From modest origins, the Treasury offices proliferated until they occupied the entire block. The 1791 city directory gives an anatomy of this burgeoning department, with 8 employees in Hamilton's office, 13 in the comptroller's, 15 in the auditor's, 19 in the register's, 3 in the treasurer's, 14 in the office for settling accounts between the federal government and the states, and 21 in the customs office on Second Street, with an additiona..
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Ron Chernow |
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65e6d17
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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.
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Ron Chernow |
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7e35ade
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On September 20, the New York Stock Exchange halted trading for ten days. Grant received emergency pleas for purchases of Treasury bonds to add liquidity to national banks, while Thomas Murphy, the former New York customs collector, wired: "Relief must come immediately or hundreds if not thousands of our best men will be ruined."2 Not since 1837 had such a spasm of fear flashed through Wall Street."
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Ron Chernow |
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9e9e34a
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Hamilton and Madison came to symbolize opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the time of the Federalist essays, however, they were so close in style and outlook that scholars find it hard to sort out their separate contributions. In general, Madison's style was dense and professorial, Hamilton's more graceful and flowing, yet they had a similar flair for startling epigrams and piercing insights. At this stage, Madison often sounded "H..
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Ron Chernow |