Sublime

“There never was perhaps a greater contrast between two characters than between those of the present president and his predecessor,” James Madison observed. “The one cool, considerate, and cautious, the other headlong and kindled into flame by every spark that lights on his passions.”28 For all his vast legislative experience, the temperamental

For Washington, who cherished his retirement, this news must have been disturbing. Not surprisingly, Shays’s Rebellion crystallized for him the need to overhaul the Articles of Confederation.

In many ways, the amendments to the authority acts had given him, in his fields of operation, more power than he would have possessed as chief executive of state or city.

“The stamping of paper is an operation so much easier than the laying of taxes that a government in the practice of paper emissions would rarely fail in any such emergency to indulge itself too far.”

Not only does a Governor not interfere with an official like Robert Moses; he heaps on him more and more responsibilities. No matter what the job was, it seemed, if it was difficult Roosevelt turned to the same man. During 1930, 1931 and 1932, Moses handled more than a dozen special assignments for Roosevelt and produced results on every one. And

Having fought for independence, Americans still had no idea what sort of government would emerge in the aftermath of a successful war. Thus far the new nation had no real executive branch, just a few departments; no independent judiciary; and only an ineffectual Congress. For most Americans, the idea of royalty was still anathema. On the other