Alexander Hamilton Quotes
Tell them from ME at MY request, for God’s sake, to cease these conversations and threatenings about the separation of the Union. It must hang together as long as it can be made to.
The Federalists had a loathing of President Thomas Jefferson as strong as that held by Conservatives regarding President William Clinton. Some leading Federalists including Timothy Pickering, a former Secretary of State, developed a plan whereby the New England states would secede if Jefferson won his second term and entice New York to join them thus creating a new empire. Hamilton was one of the most popular Federalists of the day and he put a stop to the plot. This was the last letter Hamilton was ever to write. The next morning he fought his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. Ironically, Burr had negotiated with the plotters for the New York action. He straddled the fence refusing to commit to the plan, but not clearly repudiating it either as Hamilton had done.
Alexander Hamilton, 1755-1804, Aide-de-camp to General Washington, Member of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury (Federalist, NY), Letter to Theodore Sedgwick, July 10, 1804
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
There was some political pressure in the North, to offer terms to the South where they could cease the rebellion and return to the Union and return to the status quo ante—before the rebellion.
The North and the South had major differences on the issue of Spanish Florida and whether or not the U. S. should expand by force. Northerners were generally opposed while the South had an opposite view.
Jackson was reacting to the claimed right of South Carolina to nullify Federal tariffs and other Federal laws.
Crittendon, at the outbreak of the Civil War, had a Governor who wanted Kentucky to secede and join the Confederacy, but he and other leaders thwarted that and the state legislatures defied the governor and forced him to resign. 16 percent of Kentucky men held slaves and keeping Kentucky and Maryland in the Union was a very high priority for President Lincoln. See {633812}.
Kentucky and Maryland were so called “border states” between the North and the South. Many citizens of both were sympathetic to the South on the slavery issue but did not want war. The governor of Kentucky had written Lincoln saying that Kentucky did not wish to secede and join the South, and wanted to avoid war or any fighting in Kentucky. In addition to his general desire for peace, Kentucky itself was split down the middle and that state could have its own civil war with half the population fighting the other half. Lincoln had to deal with the situation very delicately. It was not enough however that Kentucky did not secede and join the rebellion and Southern Confederacy. Lincoln wanted a commitment to help preserve the Union. What Kentucky and Maryland got, that most people do not realize is that they were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation—only the slaves of the states in rebellion had their slaves emancipated. Later Congress included the border states ending slavery.
While Douglas and Lincoln were political opponents with little love lost between them, both were patriots. And Douglas was committed to seeing that Lincoln was inaugurated and the Union preserved, if Lincoln won the election. When Lincoln did so, Douglas traveled throughout the South trying to persuade Southerners to stay in the Union. See {584870}.
It would be almost 30 years until Jackson would have been proved correct and the Civil War had begun.
In 1837 and 1839 there were insurrections in Lower Canada against British rule. The British put down the rebellion and executed a few of the leaders.
In one of the earliest calls to revolution, the adage of Aesop found a new expression.
The words are those of President Andrew Jackson. See {604550}. After occupying New Orleans, General Butler infuriated the Confederate Sympathizers with this act. Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and an unapologetic slave owner. The Southerners had erected a magnificent statue of their hero Jackson on horseback in a major section of the city. Butler, then ordered that the Jackson quotation be chiseled in the stone base. The townspeople were furious that this Union General would make up words and attribute them to Jackson; however, when they finally realized that Jackson had actually said those words they felt even more humiliated. There are still a few Southernors who consider this terrible insult to the Confederacy, and of course that is just what Butler intended.
Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman, politician, legal scholar, military commander, lawyer, banker, and economist. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an influential interpreter and promoter of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, and the New York Post newspaper. As the first secretary of the treasury, Hamilton was the main author of the economic policies of George Washington's administration. He took the lead in the federal government's funding of the states' debts, as well as establishing the nation's first two de facto central banks, the Bank of North America and the First Bank of the United States, a system of tariffs, and friendly trade relations with Britain. His vision included a strong central government led by a vigorous executive branch, a strong commercial economy, government-controlled banks, support for manufacturing, and a strong military.
