Quotes

In the best of all possible worlds, Hamilton preferred free trade, open markets, and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” He wrote late in life, “In

1792 – right from the start, this was the sort of disaster that comes from trying to “aid” trade. Unfortunately, nobody could cure William

comrades. After France declared itself a republic on September 20, 1792, American sympathizers feted the news with toasts, cannonades, and jubilation. When Jefferson replied

At moments, however, Wolcott grew ambivalent about the idea of Hamilton exposing Adams, arguing that “the people [already] believe that their president is crazy.”

The 1800 elections revealed, for the first time, the powerful centrist pull of American politics—the electorate’s tendency to rein in anything perceived as extreme.

The intellectual spoilsport among the founding fathers, Hamilton never believed in the perfectibility of human nature and regularly violated what became the first commandment

Hamilton labored under no illusions about resistance to the whiskey tax and was prepared to equip a small army of inspectors with stiff enforcement

As members of the Virginia plantation world, Jefferson and Madison had a nearly visceral contempt for market values and tended to denigrate commerce as

bonds. At the same time, he admitted that speculative abuses are “an occasional ill, incident to a general good,” that did not outweigh the

To pass the constitutional test, Jefferson said, a measure had to be more than just convenient in executing powers granted to the federal government: