Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

“Be indulgent, my child, to your inferiors,” Schuyler once advised his son John, “affable and courteous to your equals, respectful not cringing to your superiors, whether they are so by superior mental abilities or those necessary distinctions which society has established.”

Both Hamilton and Jefferson believed in democracy, but Hamilton tended to be more suspicious of the governed and Jefferson of the governors.

Under the tutelage of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton, the Federalists had bequeathed to American history a sound federal government with a central bank, a funded debt, a high credit rating, a tax system, a customs service, a coast guard, a navy, and many other institutions that would guarantee the strength to preserve liberty.