George Washington had Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson had Albert Gallatin. From internationally known tax expert and former Supreme Court law clerk Gregory May comes this long overdue biography of the remarkable immigrant who launched the fiscal policies that shaped the early Republic and the future of American politics. Not Alexander Hamilton---Albert Gallatin. To this day, the fight over fiscal policy lies at the center of American politics. Jefferson's champion in that fight was Albert Gallatin---a Swiss immigrant who served as Treasury Secretary for twelve years because he was the only man in Jefferson's party who understood finance well enough to reform Alexander Hamilton's system. A look at Gallatin's work---repealing internal taxes, restraining government spending, and repaying public debt---puts our current federal fiscal problems in perspective. The Jefferson Administration's enduring achievement was to contain the federal government by restraining its fiscal power. This was Gallatin's work. It set the pattern for federal finance until the Civil War, and it created a culture of fiscal responsibility that survived well into the twentieth century.

The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled, was a book constructed by Thomas Jefferson in the latter years of his life by cutting and pasting numerous sections from various Bibles as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson's composition excluded sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists. In 1895, the Smithsonian Institution under the leadership of librarian Cyrus Adler purchased the original Jefferson Bible from Jefferson's great-granddaughter Carolina Randolph for $400. A conservation effort commencing in 2009, in partnership with the museum's Political History department, allowed for a public unveiling in an exhibit open from November 11, 2011, through May 28, 2012, at the National Museum of American History.

In 1776 the United States government started out on a shoestring and quickly went bankrupt fighting its War of Independence against Britain. At the war’s end, the national government owed tremendous sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens. But lacking the power to tax, it had no means to repay them. The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists—immigrants—solved the fiscal crisis and set the United States on a path to long-term economic success. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Thomas K. McCraw analyzes the skills and worldliness of Alexander Hamilton (from the Danish Virgin Islands), Albert Gallatin (from the Republic of Geneva), and other immigrant founders who guided the nation to prosperity. Their expertise with liquid capital far exceeded that of native-born plantation owners Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, who well understood the management of land and slaves but had only a vague knowledge of financial instruments—currencies, stocks, and bonds. The very rootlessness of America’s immigrant leaders gave them a better understanding of money, credit, and banks, and the way each could be made to serve the public good. The remarkable financial innovations designed by Hamilton, Gallatin, and other immigrants enabled the United States to control its debts, to pay for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and—barely—to fight the War of 1812, which preserved the nation’s hard-won independence from Britain.

Thomas Jefferson Beale was a man of mystery, a born leader, an adventurer--and the love child of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress, Sally Hemings. In a unique combination of fact and fiction, Hinson sets the stage for his exciting revelations about the legend of Beale's buried treasure.

Suggests that President Clinton's largest legacy may be the weakening of the presidency and of the Democratic Party.

Examines the life of statesman Albert Gallatin and discusses his role in the formation of the United States.