Quotes from Ron Chernow

And both sides would prove right.

Only a free press could check abuses of executive power, Hamilton asserted.

The proliferation of rebates hastened the shift toward an integrated national economy, top-heavy with giant companies enjoying preferential freight rates.

Rockefeller established various taboos on the course, including that no business or charitable bequests should ever be discussed.

For Rockefeller, it was dogma that prices should reflect true market values, not the buyer's ability to pay, and nothing upset him more than the notion that a rich man should pay a premium on his hard-earned wealth.

Schwab sounded out Carnegie on his willingness to sell his steel company to the trust.

It was a common practice in all descriptions of freighting, not peculiar to oil; in merchandise, grain, everything.

he was frustrated that he couldn't give money away quickly enough to keep pace with his mounting income.

Rockefeller was extremely uncompromising on the subject.

I believe it my duty to a good many people who have been blackmailed by doctors to stand a trial.

The Rockefellers could be playful on occasion.

Rockefeller and Charles clashed repeatedly over this question.

It was too easy to camouflage selfish impulses by invoking a higher cause as the real cause.

Rebates had inevitably accompanied railroad expansion.

First, the railroads had engaged in such fierce, internecine price wars that freight rates had fallen sharply.

If he showed generosity toward Frank, it deepened his brother's dependence and bred anger; if he didn't give him money, Frank threw a tantrum.

Frank could never curb his compulsive gambling.

Few, if any, other founding fathers opposed slavery more consistently or toiled harder to eradicate it than Hamilton—a fact that belies the historical stereotype that he cared only for the rich and privileged.

While the GEB achieved remarkable things in upgrading southern education, it failed to deliver major results where it had originally wanted them most: in black education.

A prominent antifederalist had already warned him that "rather than to adopt the Constitution, I would risk a government of Jew, Turk or infidel.

Nonetheless, Jefferson Davis remained loyal to him in the teeth of a clamor to cashier him.

had larger concerns than most bankers of his day.

most of the sort restricted to Anglo-Saxon Christian men

Rebates weren't just solicited by shippers but were sedulously pushed by railway freight agents eager to win over new business.