Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation

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Transaction Publishers - Biography & Autobiography - 659 pages

Probably no American statesman displayed more constructive imagination than did Alexander Hamilton. Prodigal of ideas, bursting with plans for diversifying the economy, and obsessed by a determination to make the United States a powerful nation under a centralized government, he left an imprint upon this country that time has not effaced. Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation is the premier biography of Alexander Hamilton written by one of the foremost scholars of early American history.

Hamilton's career was at times contradictory: born, in John Adams's words, the "bastard brat of a Scotch peddler," he rose to high social, political, and military position in the newly born country. He dreaded divisiveness, yet his strateĀ­gies and actions aggravated political sectionalism. Miller weaves together the complex facets of Hamilton's life to make a vivid, absorbing biography.

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Contents

The Union Against Great Britain Chapter 1 The Making of a Revolutionary
3
AidedeCamp to Washington
17
The Struggle Against Inflation
43
The Quarrel with Washington
62
The Union Against Chaos Chapter 5 Congress and the Army
83
Law and the Loyalists
100
A Rage for Liberty
111
Democracy and Banking
120
The Opposition Emerges
311
The Attack upon Hamilton
322
Hamiltons Quarrel with Jefferson and Burr
343
The Union Against Foreign Aggression The Proclamation of Neutrality Chapter 24 The Proclamation of Neutrality
363
The War Clouds Gather
379
The Whisky Rebellion
396
Jays Treaty
415
The Election of 1796
435

More Power to Congress
131
The Constitutional Convention 1
151
The Constitutional Convention 2
171
The Federalist
184
The Rule of Law
193
A More Perfect Union
206
The First Secretary of the Treasury Chapter 15 The First Secretary of the Treasury
219
The Report on Public Credit
229
Speculators vs Patriots
238
The Bank of the United States
255
The Report on Manufactures
278
The Effort to Transform the American Economy
296
The Mission to France
451
Second in Command of the United States Army
466
The War That Refused to Come to a Boil
479
The Effort to Avert Peace
493
The Election of 1800
509
The Union Above All Chapter 34 A Prophet of Woe
533
Defender of the Freedom of the Press
544
The Duel with Burr
557
Notes
577
Bibliography
623
Index
641
Copyright

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Page 177 - It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair: the event is in the hands of God.
Page 193 - ... whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.
Page 164 - ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.
Page 156 - Resolved, that each branch ought to possess the right of originating acts; that the national legislature ought to be empowered to enjoy the legislative rights vested in Congress by the Confederation, and moreover to legislate in all cases to which the separate states are incompetent or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation...
Page 477 - By some he is considered as an ambitious man, and therefore a dangerous one. That he is ambitious, I shall readily grant, but it is of that laudable kind, which prompts a man to excel in whatever he takes in hand. He is enterprising, quick in his perceptions, and his judgment intuitively great; qualities essential to a military character, and therefore I repeat, that his loss will be irreparable.
Page 14 - 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.
Page 240 - Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uninformed mass of the people.
Page 317 - I am affectionately attached to the Republican theory. I desire, above all things, to see the equality of political rights, exclusive of all hereditary distinction, firmly established by a practical demonstration of its being consistent with the order and happiness of society.
Page 203 - Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the Judicial to the Legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the People is superior to both ; and that where the will of the Legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the People, declared in the Constitution, the Judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.
Page 200 - Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress^ the many. Both, therefore, ought to have the power, that each may defend itself against the other.

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