Sublime

Like Washington, Adams viewed himself as an incorruptible figure rising above the bane of parties. And like Washington, his political enemies insisted on tagging him as a Federalist. In this rancorous atmosphere, he was denied the political honeymoon usually reserved for new presidents and felt stranded between two extremes. “All the Federalists se

George Washington had warned the country against entangling alliances; Ike wanted to warn against the perils of ever-increasing defense expenditures and the garrison state.

Dating back to their wartime frustrations with Congress, Washington and Hamilton had shared a common worldview and an expansive faith in executive power. They had seen firsthand how Britain’s well-funded public debt had enabled it to prosecute the war with seemingly limitless resources. Late in the war Washington had blasted the fanciful notion tha

For his feat, Washington was lionized as never before and exalted into a historic personage, collecting heaps of honors. By bestowing upon him an honorary degree, Harvard supplied the long-standing defect in his education. In a tribute drafted by John Jay, Hancock assured Washington that history would record that “under your direction an undiscipli

The greatest defense of the Constitution was a series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym Publius and later collected as The Federalist.

Unlike some patrician debtors, Washington was uneasy carrying so much debt, reminding his London creditor that “it is but an irksome thing to a free mind to be any ways hampered in debt.”46

No sooner had Washington received the five hundred pounds from Conway at 6 percent interest than he had to request another hundred pounds two days later for “the expenses of my journey to New York, if I go thither.”71 It was an extraordinary admission: Washington needed money to attend his own inauguration as president. Even though he was shortly t