Halliday attempts to answer what has been the enigma of Thomas Jefferson, how a man who is celebrated as a champion of freedom was a major slave owner for his entire life. ... The first half of this book aims to be a short yet fairly comprehensive sketch of Jefferson's whole life, with the focus more on the personal and private than the public and political. The second consists of a series of closely related essays on crucial topics such as his symbolic feud with Alexander Hamilton, his views on slavery and race. ... Some final chapters make especially neat work of the big historians who ...

• Word Count: 590
• Approx Pages: 2

As historian Ted Alexander notes, in his essay on the causes of the civil war, "Beneath this great wealth and prosperity, America seethed. ... No one was better prepared to defend the Constitution than New Yorker, and federalist, Alexander Hamilton. ... Hamilton himself wrote more than two-thirds of them. In the first of the essays, Hamilton set the stage for those that would follow, proclaiming that "the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty." ... Hamilton was highly supported in the North, making evident that Northern interests in the new government were national, stro...

• Word Count: 3046
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores (463).? ... Natty Bumpo was Cooper's vision of a man who had spent his life embracing his individuality and living by his own creed of morality, a theme that would continue to be reflected in the literature of this new nation. ... consisting of the three politicians: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. ... The young country and its people were struggling with many issues during its ...

• Word Count: 1207
• Approx Pages: 5

(Russell 79) Like many others, she realized there was a better life ahead of her without being in bondage. ... (Crowe 214) In 1785, a group of New Yorkers led by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton arranged for the formal freeing of slaves. ... (Crowe 229) Thomas Jefferson owned and sold slaves, yet proclaimed that all men were equal with the "unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ...

• Word Count: 1979
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

Several of the delegates were well known and influential people; James Madison (who is considered the father of the constitution), George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton were only a few. ... This was a government based on a charter that said that all men are created equal with an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but a society which by the nineteenth century was the largest slave holding country in the world (qtd in Ferris 9)". ... They were very vocal and the Southerners began to see them as another threat to their way of life. ... They quick...

• Word Count: 3329
• Approx Pages: 13