1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
5443
5619
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| d6e0afe | On February 2, 1780, hard on the heels of Cornelia and Polly, Elizabeth Schuyler arrived in Morristown, accompanied by a military escort, to stay with relatives. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 9e65451 | In 1807, Burr was arrested for treason and for trying to incite a war against Spain. He was acquitted by Chief Justice John Marshall, who applied a strict definition of treason. The acquittal only sharpened Jefferson's contempt for "the original error of establishing a judiciary independent of the nation" | Ron Chernow | ||
| 3cd2449 | Editing a Federalist newspaper in Richmond, he revealed that Jefferson, while vice president, had subsidized him to malign Adams and Hamilton. When Jefferson denied this, Callender published documents showing that Jefferson had sent him money in 1799 and 1800 to assist with publication of The Prospect Before Us, in which Hamilton had been denigrated as "the son of a camp-girl."35 The embarrassed Jefferson lamely described these payments as .. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 364876e | Then, on September 1, 1802, Callender broke a story that he had learned about in jail and that was to reverberate down through American history: Jefferson's scandalous romance with Sally Hemings: "It is well known that the man whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally. . . . By this wench Sally, our President has had several children." | Ron Chernow | ||
| b76f9fc | No longer regarded as the Federalist leader, he had acquired the uncomfortable status of a glorified has-been. He still had a law office in lower Manhattan--in 1803, he moved it from 69 Stone Street to 12 Garden Street--and maintained a pied-a-terre at 58 Partition Street (now Fulton Street), | Ron Chernow | ||
| 154189d | Congress was chased like a covey of partridges from Philadelphia to Trenton, from Trenton to Lancaster," Adams wrote with his usual gift for evocative language." | Ron Chernow | ||
| 73c1c6b | the last analysis, the durable bond formed between Hamilton and Washington during the Revolution was based less on personal intimacy than on shared experiences of danger and despair and common hopes for America's future. From the same situation, they had drawn the same conclusions: the need for a national army, for centralized power over the states, for a strong executive, and for national unity. Their political views, forged in the crucibl.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| e282ad9 | On April 30, 1781, Hamilton sent a marathon letter to Morris--it runs to thirty-one printed pages--that set forth a full-fledged system for shoring up American credit and creating a national bank. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 8ed8c40 | In mid-February 1804, Hamilton journeyed to Albany and pleaded for a new trial before the state supreme court. | Ron Chernow | ||
| ff4b494 | The lawmakers were drawn to the courtroom by more than curiosity: they had under consideration a bill that would allow truth as a defense in libel trials. | Ron Chernow | ||
| e6c5cef | arguing for a new trial, Hamilton highlighted the principle at stake, the protection of a free press: "The liberty of the press consists, in my idea, in publishing the truth from good motives and for justifiable ends, [even] though it reflect on the government, on magistrates, or individuals."18 As a victim of repeated press abuse, Hamilton did not endorse a completely unfettered press: "I consider this spirit of abuse and calumny as the pe.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 88dcb15 | After being exculpated by the House investigating committee in late May 1794, Hamilton had informed George Washington that he would not resign after all, citing the prospect of war. In the end, he did go to war, not against European powers but against American frontier settlers. The Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania that year was an armed protest against the excise tax on domestic distilled spirits--the "whiskey tax," in common ling.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 24e79ed | the tax constituted the second largest source of federal revenues and was indispensable to Hamilton. If deprived of that crucial tax, he would have to raise tariffs, which would encourage more smuggling and tax evasion and spur commercial retaliation abroad. The government also needed money to finance military expeditions against the Indians--expeditions that were especially popular in the affected frontier communities, such as those of wes.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 3c712a1 | In January 1803, a grand jury in Columbia County, New York, indicted Harry Croswell for seditious libel against President Jefferson. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 53a08ff | The gist of Hamilton's argument was that the truth of the claims made by an author should be admissible evidence for the defense in a libel case. The standard heretofore had been that plaintiffs in libel cases needed to prove only that statements made against them were defamatory, not that they were false. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 549df01 | By spotlighting the issue of intent, Hamilton identified the criteria for libel that still hold sway in America today: that the writing in question must be false, defamatory, and malicious. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 8391799 | His whole soul was enlisted in the cause and in contending for the rights of the jury and a free press, he considered that he was establishing the surest refuge against oppression. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 67d06a0 | In April 1803, President Jefferson reached the zenith of his popularity with the Louisiana Purchase. For a mere pittance of fifteen million dollars, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, doubling American territory | Ron Chernow | ||
| a9b6ab8 | When it suited his convenience, Jefferson set aside his small-government credo with compunction. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 1e3ecf7 | many Federalists emerged as strict constructionists and denied that the Constitution permitted the purchase. Beyond legal reservations, they worried that this new American territory would weaken Federalist power, sealing their doom. The new western terrain would be preponderantly Republican and agricultural, and slavery might flourish there. In fact, every state that entered the Union between 1803 and 1845 as a result of the purchase turned.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| ac9390b | Fearful of being overshadowed by an expanding Republican slave empire in the west, some New England Federalists began to talk of secession from the union. Such plans formed part of the context for the Hamilton-Burr duel. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 451ca8d | a striking example of political gaucheness, Adams then nominated Washington to command the new army before he had a chance to register an opinion. On July 3, the Senate hastily approved the choice. | Ron Chernow | ||
| ea094fb | Sometime in March 1804, Hamilton dined in Albany at the home of Judge John Tayler, a Republican merchant and former state assemblyman who was working for the election of Morgan Lewis. Both Judge Tayler and Hamilton expressed their dread at having Aaron Burr as governor. "You can have no conception of the exertions that are [being made] for Burr," Tayler had told De Witt Clinton. "Every artifice that can be devised is used to promote his cau.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 5559f92 | Both Hamilton and Madison were rational men who assumed that people often acted irrationally because of ambition and avarice. Madison wrote, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." | Ron Chernow | ||
| 32f4b95 | early July 1792, it was clear that George Washington would not have the option of silence or inaction in stemming the feud between Hamilton and Jefferson. He had probably waited too long to assert control. His fine, nonpartisan stance may have only intensified the partisan mischief between his two appointees. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 367a95e | Hamilton seemed unhinged by the dispute. In the still secret Reynolds affair, he had shown a lack of private restraint. Now something compulsive and uncontrollable appeared in his public behavior. A captive of his emotions, he revealed an irrepressible need to respond to attacks. Whenever he tried to suppress these emotions, they burst out and overwhelmed him. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 4ce0353 | Thomas Jefferson's resignation as secretary of state on December 31, 1793. The Virginian had failed to eject Hamilton from the cabinet and had lost the contest for Washington's favor. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 6907ecd | 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." | Ron Chernow | ||
| 31b124f | That kiss, I cannot describe. It was like a poem, a prayer, a homecoming unlooked-for. It was like dungeon walls crumbling to reveal a glimpse of sky. It | Jacqueline Carey | ||
| 0d1ac46 | England refused to acknowledge the traditional doctrine "free ships make free goods"--i.e., that neutral vessels had a right to carry all cargo save munitions and enter the ports of belligerent countries. On November 6, 1793, William Pitt's ministry had decreed that British ships could intercept neutral vessels hauling produce to or from the French West Indies." | Ron Chernow | ||
| a360d39 | When Hamilton heard about British depredations, he did not behave like a pawn of British interests. Rather, he drew up for Washington contingency plans to raise a twenty-thousand-man army to defend coastal cities and impose a partial trade embargo. "The pains taken to preserve peace," he told Washington, "include a proportional responsibility that equal pains be taken to be prepared for war."4 Once again, Hamilton and Washington agreed that.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| e263e4c | On May 12, a thousand New Yorkers cheered from the docks as Jay sailed to England, hoping to avert war. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 828e521 | Washington gave orders to construct six frigates--the birth of the U.S. Navy--and Hamilton negotiated contracts for many naval components: cannon, shot and shells, iron ballast, sailcloth, live oak and cedar, and saltpeter for gunpowder. | Ron Chernow | ||
| cd584a4 | Hamilton and Madison were again pitted in a fundamental contest over whether the executive or legislative branch would run American foreign policy. Hamilton was relieved when Washington denied Congress the treaty instructions. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 5d17da9 | On April 30, 1796, Federalists eked out a razor-thin victory of fifty-one to forty-eight in the House to make money available for the Jay Treaty. | Ron Chernow | ||
| c52bd47 | The court approved Hamilton's argument that this excise tax was legal and that Congress had power "over every species of taxable property, except exports."5 The decision in Hylton v. United States not only endorsed Hamilton's broad view of federal taxing power but represented the first time the Supreme Court ever ruled on the constitutionality of an act of Congress." | Ron Chernow | ||
| 47d7a6b | On December 5, 1792, members of the electoral college assembled in their respective states. The outcome gratified Hamilton and corresponded with his expectations. Washington was chosen unanimously as president. Adams received seventy-seven votes, enough to return him as vice president, | Ron Chernow | ||
| 99f81a7 | Washington told Pickering that it would be "political suicide" to recruit anyone into his administration who was not prepared to support his programs wholeheartedly.18 He had learned his lesson with Jefferson and discarded the naive belief that he could straddle both political factions. He was now more solidly aligned with the Federalists," | Ron Chernow | ||
| 97576e8 | John Adams was sworn in as the second president on March 4, 1797, | Ron Chernow | ||
| 812ac1a | On March 4, 1793, George Washington was sworn in for his second term as president | Ron Chernow | ||
| 1303135 | Fisher Ames, always a shrewd observer of the scene, mused that "a spirit of faction . . . must soon come to a crisis." He foresaw that congressional Republicans would discard their comparatively decorous criticism of Washington's first term:" | Ron Chernow | ||
| 879b23d | The American Revolution had succeeded because it was "a free, regular and deliberate act of the nation" and had been conducted with "a spirit of justice and humanity."22 It was, in fact, a revolution written in parchment and defined by documents, petitions, and other forms of law." | Ron Chernow | ||
| fa608ae | Hamilton seldom published under his own name and drew on a bewildering array of pseudonyms. Such pen names were sometimes transparent masks through which the public readily identified prominent politicians. The fashion of allowing anonymous attacks permitted extraordinary bile to seep into political discourse, and savage remarks that might not otherwise have surfaced appeared regularly in the press. | Ron Chernow | ||
| dcb65ed | By now, monarchy and aristocracy were standard code words for Hamilton and the Federalists. | Ron Chernow |