A Few of Hamilton's Letters: Including His Description of the Great West Indian Hurricane of 1772 |
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Adieu affairs affectionate Albany ALEXANDER HAMILTON America André answer appear appointed army Arnold bank believe brigade Burr CALIFORN character Colonel Hamilton command conduct congress considerations considered continental troops CROIX dear Hamilton Dear Sir desire doubt duty effect endeavour enemy engagements esteem execution expected favour feel Fishkill Freneau Gazette give Glover's happy honour hope idea imagine immediately influence interest Jefferson John Fawcett JOHN LAURENS King's Ferry Knox late LAURENS Lawien legislature letter manner Meade means measures ment militia mind MOUNT VERNON necessary necessity never New-York obedient servant object obliged occasion Oliver Wolcott opinion paper party Peekskill Philadelphia pleasure political present President Putnam reasons received respect sentiments siege of York sincere Sir Henry Clinton sufficient thing thought tion Treasury Viscount de Noailles Washington West Point wish write
Popular passages
Page 162 - I acknowledge and avow; and this was not merely a speculative difference. His system flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine and demolish the Republic, by creating an influence of his department over the members of the Legislature.
Page 162 - If, what was actually doing, begat uneasiness in those who wished for virtuous government, what was further proposed was not less threatening to the friends of the Constitution. For, in a report on the subject of manufactures, (still to be acted on,) it was expressly assumed that the General Government has a right to exercise...
Page 173 - As to the merits or demerits of his paper, they certainly concern me not. He and Fenno [editor of the ' United States Gazette'] are rivals for the public favor ; the one courts them by flattery, the other by censure ; and I believe it will be admitted that the one has been as servile as the other severe.
Page 153 - ... same general objects in view, and the same upright intentions to prosecute them, will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions and actions of one another. When matters get to such lengths, the natural inference is, that both sides have strained the cords beyond their bearing, and that...
Page 256 - when" is in your own knowledge, but no way material to me, as the calumny has now first been disclosed so as to become the subject of my notice, and as the effect is present and palpable. Your letter has furnished me with new reasons for requiring a definite reply.
Page 175 - I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a man, whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country, which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped its honors on his head.
Page 82 - ... they do not like ; and to form partial combinations subversive of the general one. There is a wide difference between our situation, and that of an empire under one simple form of government, distributed into counties, provinces, or districts, which have no legislatures, but merely magistratical bodies, to execute the laws of a common sovereign. Here the danger is, that the sovereign will have too much power, and oppress the parts of which it is composed.
Page 172 - I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions, that the talents, which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the government of their affairs, rather than that this should be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools, passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed. Colonel Hamilton, alias "Plain Facts," says that Freneau's salary began before he resided in Philadelphia.
Page 77 - Agreeably to your request, and my promise, I sit down to give you my ideas of the defects of our present system, and the changes necessary to save us from ruin. They may, perhaps, be the reveries of a projector, rather than the sober views of a politician. You will judge of them, and make what use you please of them. The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress.
Page 92 - It is necessary, that every thing, belonging to this, should be regulated by the state legislatures. Congress should have complete sovereignty in all that relates to war, peace, trade, finance, and to the management of foreign affairs, the right of declaring war of raising armies, officering, paying them, directing their motions in every respect, of equipping fleets and doing the same with them, of building fortifications arsenals magazines &c.