Sublime

In both English and Spanish America the price of imperial expansion had been de facto colonial autonomy.37 When Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy Virginia planter, led a rebellion against the governor in 1676 (accusing him of being soft on the Pamunkey people) and burned down the colony’s capital at Jamestown, there was little or nothing that London could

Right before the Princeton battle, Washington informed Philadelphia financier Robert Morris that “we have the greatest occasion at present for hard money to pay a certain set of people who are of particular use to us . . . Silver would be most convenient.” 19 Washington considered Morris, a huge man with a ruddy complexion and a genial personality,

Until the publication of Hamilton’s report, James Madison had been Washington’s most confidential adviser. That began to erode on February 11, 1790, when Madison rose in the House and, in a surprising volte-face, denounced the idea that speculators should benefit from Hamilton’s program. It was a stunning shot across the bow of the administration.

In 1791, under the auspices of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the federal government imposed a Whiskey Tax intended to help repay the young republic’s debts. Hamilton also hoped it would drive small rural producers out of business in the favor of larger ones. It was one of Hamilton’s less laudable ideas, and the residents of

Josiah Bartlett, a signatory of