Happy Birthday to my first historical love. <3
I wish I could find the portrait I had to draw of him in 5th grade. It was atrocious.
(via aestatedomus)
Christie’s Americana Week sale takes place January 21-25 at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. The sale includes a unique watch key owned by Thomas Jefferson. The key contains a lock of his wife’s hair and is inscribed “Martha W. Jefferson Born 19 Oct. 1748, Died 6 Sept. 1782.” Jefferson, who never remarried, pledged to always remember his wife. It is believed that Jefferson commissioned this watch key as a means of fulfilling that promise.
(via aestatedomus)
(Source: mrflanksteak, via ladybutternut-deactivated201203)
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Quick Founder Doodle, In Which OTP Because England Is A Whore
(Source: stuckinephemeralsilliness, via publius-report)
“As to the love of liberty and country you have given no stronger proofs of being actuated by it than I have done. Cease then to arrogate to yourself and to your party all the patriotism and virtue of the country.” — Alexander Hamilton directed to Thomas Jefferson, ‘Objections and Answers respecting the Administration of the Government’, August 18, 1792 (via publius-report)
To give some context to the “corruption” quote from the Anas, if we’re to take Jefferson at his word, it’s important to note Hamilton was clearly quoting David Hume’s view of the British government:
“We may…give to this influence what name we please; we may call it by the invidious appellations of corruption and dependence; but some degree and some kind of it are inseparable from the very nature of the constitution and necessary to the preservation of our mixed government.”
- Hume, ‘Of the Independency of Parliament’
And it is consistent with Hamilton’s tendency to make misjudged jokes at his political enemies.
“But Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corruption; In proof of this I will relate an anecdote, for the truth of which, I attest the God who made me. Before the President set out on his southern tour in April, 1791, he addressed a letter of the fourth of that month, from Mount Vernon, to the Secretaries of State, Treasury and War, desiring that if any serious and important cases should arise during his absence, they would consult and act on them. And he requested that the Vice President should also be consulted. This was the only occasion on which that officer was ever requested to take part in a cabinet question. Some occasion for consultation arising, I invited those gentlemen (and the Attorney General, as well as I remember,) to dine with me, in order to confer on the subject. After the cloth was removed, and our question agreed and dismissed, conversation began on other matters, and by some circumstance, was led to the British constitution, on which Mr. Adams observed, ‘purge that constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever devised by the wit of man.’ Hamilton paused and said, ‘purge it of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect government which ever existed.’ And this was assuredly the exact line which separated the political creeds of these two gentlemen.”
Thomas Jefferson, Anas.
Along with the Caesar incident, I get the distinct feeling Hamilton lacked the part of his brain that deters really bad decisions: ‘Should I really say this to this person? No? Say it anyway. It’ll be a riot.’
“Mr. Jefferson has hitherto been distinguished as the quiet, modest, retiring philosopher; as the plain, simple, unambitious republican. He shall not now, for the first time, be regarded as the intriguing incendiary, the aspiring turbulent competitor.
How long it is since that gentleman’s real character may have been divined, or whether this is only the first time that the secret has been disclosed, I am not sufficiently acquainted with the history of his political life to determine; but there is always a ‘first time’ when characters studious of artful disguises are unveiled; when the visor of stoicism is plucked from the brow of the epicurean; when the plain garb of Quaker simplicity is stripped from the concealed voluptuary; when Cæsar coyly refusing the proffered diadem, is seen to be Cæsar rejecting the trappings, but tenaciously grasping the substance of imperial domination.
” — Alexander Hamilton, ‘Catullus’, September 29, 1792. And Jefferson did show everyone he was a simple republican farmer. By running for president. Neither Hamilton nor Adams bought it. (via publius-report)
Alexander Hamilton’s notes for a speech he delivered at the Constitutional Convention on June 18th 1787.
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“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” — Thomas Jefferson (via completeculture)
(via fuckyeahjefferson)
On August 31, 1772, St. Croix and its neighboring islands was hit with one of the worst hurricanes in its history, leaving wide spread destruction and famine. Hamilton wrote a melodramatic letter to his father describing the event. The residents were impressed by the seventeen-year-old’s literary talents, and helped secure him the funds to send him to the American continent for further education.
‘Honored Sir. I take up my pen just to give you an imperfect account of the most dreadful hurricane that memory or any records whatever can trace, which happened here on the 31st ultimo at night.
‘It began about dusk, at North, and raged very violently till ten o’clock. Then ensued a sudden and unexpected interval, which lasted about an hour. Meanwhile, the wind was shifting round to the South West point, from whence it returned with redoubled fury and continued so till near three o’clock in the morning. Good God! what horror and destruction - it’s impossible for me to describe - or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind-fiery meteors flying about in the air - the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning - the crash of the falling houses - and the earpiercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels. A great part of the buildings throughout the Island are leveled to the ground - almost all the rest was very shattered - several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined - whole families running about the streets unknowing where to find a place of shelter - the sick exposed to the keenness of water and air - without a bed to lie upon - or a dry covering to their bodies - our harbour is entirely bare. In a word, misery in all its most hideous shapes spread over the whole face of the country - a strong smell of gunpowder added somewhat to the terrors of the night; and it was observed that the rain was surprisingly salt. Indeed, the water is so brackish and full of sulphur that there is hardly any drinking it.
‘My reflections and feelings on this frightful and melancholy occasion are set forth in following self-discourse.
‘Where now OH! Vile worm, is all thy boasted fortitude and sufficiency? - why dost thou tremble and stand aghast? how humble - how helpless - how contemptible you now appear. And for why? the jarring of the elements - the discord of clouds? Oh, impotent presumptuous fool! How darest thou offend that omnipotence, whose nod alone were sufficient to quell the destruction that hovers over thee, or crush thee into atoms? See thy wretched helpless state and learn to know thyself. Learn to know thy best support. Despise thyself, and adore thy God. How sweet, and unutterably sweet were now, the voice of an approving conscience; Then couldst thou say, hence ye idle alarms, why do I shrink? What have I to fear? A pleasing calm suspense! A short repose from calamity to end in eternal bliss?…’
-Alexander Hamilton to James Hamilton, Royal Danish American Gazette, September 6, 1772.