Quotes About Hamilton

Hamilton dreaded parties as "the most fatal disease" of popular governments and hoped America could dispense with such groups.

If forced to choose, Hamilton preferred a man with wrong principles to one devoid of any. "There is no circumstance which has occurred in the course of our political affairs that has given me so much pain as the idea that Mr. Burr might be elevated to the Presidency by the means of the Federalists

Many things beyond the absence of Laurens troubled Hamilton that summer, especially the shortsighted failure of the states to grant mandatory taxing power to Congress in the Articles of Confederation, which had been approved as the new nation's governing charter on November 15, 1777, and submitted to the states for ratification.

The paper currency was depreciating rapidly. Hence, for the first time, Hamilton began to fiddle with ideas for creating a national bank, through a mixture of foreign loans and private subscriptions.

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 western Pennsylvania.

memories of Valley Forge and Morristown would powerfully affect the future political agendas of both Washington and Hamilton, who had to grapple with the defects of a weak central government

Hamilton wanted logical proofs of religion, not revelation, and amply annotated his copy of A View of the Evidences of Christianity, by William Paley. "I have examined carefully the evidence of the Christian religion," he told one friend, "and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity, I should rather abruptly give my verdict in its favor."13 To

that countries follow their interests, not their sympathies—was engraved in Hamilton's memory, and he often reminded Jeffersonians later on that the French had fought for their own selfish purposes.

Washington appointed Hamilton, George Wythe, and Charles Pinckney to a small committee that drew up rules and procedures for the convention.

Hamilton refused to drop his involvement in the Manumission Society even as his renown grew and his commitments vastly multiplied. He kept up his connection as a legal adviser until his death. Was this perhaps his personal way of acknowledging the past by rectifying the injustice that had surrounded his early years?

Hamilton wanted the votes of individual members recorded. Instead, the convention chose to proceed on a one-state, one-vote basis, which meant that Hamilton's vote would likely be nullified by his two fellow delegates.

Perhaps most problematic was the controversial bargain that Alexander Hamilton had struck with the Constitution, dedicating his life to what he deemed a flawed document.

At one stroke, Jefferson heaped heartless abuse on a sick man and inverted reality. Not only did Hamilton have yellow fever, but he had shown outstanding valor during the Revolution while Jefferson, as Virginia governor, had cravenly fled into the woods before the advancing British troops.

The comment smacked of aristocratic disdain for the self-made man. In fact, no immigrant in American history has ever made a larger contribution than Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza Hamilton was committed to one holy quest above all others: to rescue her husband's historical reputation from the gross slanders that had tarnished it.

After reading through George Washington's papers, Marshall pronounced Hamilton "the greatest man (or one of the greatest men) that had ever appeared in the United States."31 Marshall considered Hamilton and Washington the two indispensable founders, and it therefore came as no surprise that Jefferson looked askance at the chief justice as "the Federalist serpent in the democratic Eden of our administration."32

Few figures in American History have aroused such visceral love or loathing as Alexander Hamilton.

For Hamilton, Jefferson's desire to overturn the Judiciary Act was an insidious first step toward destroying the Constitution: "Who is so blind as not to see that the right of the legislature to abolish the judges at pleasure destroys the independence of the judicial department and swallows it up in the impetuous vortex of legislative influence?"34 Without an independent judiciary, the Constitution was a worthless document.

At noon on December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton, twenty-five, wed Elizabeth Schuyler, twenty-three, in the southeast parlor of the Schuyler mansion.

He endorsed the dollar as the basic currency, divided into smaller coins on a decimal 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.

Hamilton's lifelong habit of talking sotto voce while pacing lent him an air of either inspiration or madness.)

While marking time in Princeton in July, Hamilton drafted a resolution that again called for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. This prescient document encapsulated many features of the 1787 Constitution: a federal government with powers separated among legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and a Congress with the power to levy taxes and raise an army.

While Hamilton endeared himself to Washington in this first election, he also antagonized John Adams, a man with an encyclopedic memory for slights.

In 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