Quotes from Ron Chernow

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"49

John Adams summed up the case succinctly: "In general, our generals have been outgeneralled.

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.

Grant notified the president that he had vacated the office and no longer functioned as war secretary. Faced with this fait accompli, Johnson was furious, believing Grant should have resigned his post and allowed him to name a successor.

There is no virtue [in] America. That commerce which preside[d over] the birth and education of these states has [fitted] their inhabitants for the chain and . . . the only condition they sincerely desire is that it may be a golden one.

I trust . . . that the good sense of our countrymen will guard the public weal against this and every other innovation and that, altho[ugh] we may be a little wrong now and then, we shall return to the right path with more avidity." It was an accurate forecast of American history, both its tragic lapses and its miraculous redemptions.

capture the Republican nomination instead of Grant. With Johnson acquitted, everyone knew, Grant would get the party nod. Significantly, the seven Republicans who voted for acquittal all campaigned for Grant after he secured the nomination. They also extracted a critical pledge from Johnson that he would cease interfering with congressional action on Reconstruction.

The great thing about Grant is his perfect coolness and persistency of purpose . . . he is not easily excited . . . and he has the grit of a bull-dog! Once let him get his 'teeth' in, and nothing can shake him off.

Even as a raw country boy, he allowed himself no oath stronger than "Thunder and Lightning

Sheridan had a pugnacity that refused to quit, and Sherman described him as "a persevering terrier dog, honest, modest, plucky and smart enough." Quite unlike Grant

Henceforth he would project himself into opponents' minds and comprehend their fears and anxieties instead of blowing them up into all-powerful bugaboos, giving him courage when others quailed.

Thomas Nast published an election cartoon entitled "Victory!" that showed Grant mounted on a white horse, waving a flag bedecked with the words "Union" and "Equal Rights," as he thrust his sword into the throat of Horatio Seymour, who sat astride a black horse with the initials "K.K.K." branded ominously on its flank.

BY 1798 the Federalist party had grown haughty by being too long in power. "When a party grows strong and feels its power, it becomes intoxicated, grows presumptuous and extravagant, and breaks to pieces," Johns Adams later wrote, having presided over just such a situation as president.

In giving the South negro suffrage, we have given the old slave-holders forty votes in the electoral college. They keep those votes, but disfranchise the negroes. That is one of the gravest mistakes in the policy of reconstruction."58 Just

Alexander Hamilton may have been musing upon his mother's marriage to Lavien when he later observed, 'Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other, who have souls capable of relishing the sweets of friendship and sensibilities...But it's a dog of [a] life when two dissonant tempers meet.

Grant roomed with Fred Dent, who also singled out Grant as "the clearest headed young man I ever saw . . . He always wanted to do what was right, and we all had great respect for him. He was a singed cat—a great deal better than he looked.

Growing up as a miniature adult, burdened with duties, he developed an exaggerated sense of responsibility that would be evident throughout his life.

He generally spoke with much animation and energy, and with considerable gesture. His mind was filled with all the learning and precedence required for the occasion, enabling him to make numerous extemporaneous speeches. He seduced the listeners with hope and provoked them with fear, leading one spectator to comment that Hamilton's harangues combine the poignancy of vinegar with the smoothness of oil.

He became known for breaking in wild horses for local farmers, a sight that drew admiring spectators to the village square. He tamed even the most refractory horses through a fine sensitivity to their nature rather than by his physical prowess. "If people knew how much more they could get out of a horse by gentleness than by harshness," Grant once observed, "they would save a great deal of trouble both to the horse and the man.

Like most people, Hamilton and Adams were preternaturally sensitive to flaws in the other that they themselves possessed.

established Yellowstone as the first national park on March 1, 1872. President Lincoln had signed a bill in 1864 that permitted California to preserve the Yosemite Valley and the giant sequoias of the Mariposa Grove, but it was Grant who initiated the modern national park system.

Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying "swearing helps to rouse a man's anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him."50

Far from hiding Black Jack, the irascible John Custis doted on him, and when the little boy was five, he submitted a petition to the governor to free the boy "christened John but commonly called Jack, born of the body of his Negro wench young Alice."19 To celebrate his emancipation, the boy was given four slaves as playmates.20 Obviously John Custis didn't rate very highly as a child psychologist.

In his early days in business, Rockefeller often suffered from severe neck pains that might have indicated stress on the job, and he turned to horses as a therapeutic diversion. "I would leave my office in the afternoon and drive a pair of fast horses as hard as they could go: trot, break, gallop—everything.