Sublime

For the next two decades, Sam Rayburn held power in Washington. Presidents came and went—Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy—but whoever was President, Sam Rayburn was Speaker; he held the post he had dreamed of as a boy for almost seventeen of the twenty-one years after 1940, more years than any other man in American history. Over his branch of

Even while Congress was still debating the tariff bill, Wilson had summoned it into a second joint session, at which he called for the creation of a system of regional banks controlled by a Federal Reserve Board (its seven members would be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate) that would end Wall Street’s control of

For a second secretary, Washington retained David Humphreys, with his agile pen. Now seasoned by diplomatic experience in Paris with Jefferson, Humphreys advised Washington on questions of etiquette and was anointed chamberlain, or master of ceremonies, for the administration. The third team member was Major William Jackson, an orphan from South Ca

Although he said that debt should be used sparingly and paid down in times of peace, Washington endorsed the Hamiltonian program. He warned against an unreasonable aversion to taxes, without which the debt could not be retired—a jab at those Jeffersonians who loudly took issue with the funded debt, then opposed the whiskey tax and other measures de

As an adult, Wilson shared none of Roosevelt’s lust for violent conquest. For his secretary of state he chose William Jennings…

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