"Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have a subject in mind, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it... the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."  Can you guess the source of this quote? These words come from Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), the first treasury secretary of the U.S. under George Washington and the architect of the nation's financial system. Hamilton, who sang the praises of a strong central government, was a brilliant theorist and prodigious writer. He, along with James Madison and John Jay, wrote The Federalist Papers, which pushed for ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He championed the establishment of the First Bank of the United States and led the Federalist Party, the first political party to rise to power in the United States. It's no surprise that Hamilton's story b...

On this day in 1784, the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris at the Maryland State House in Annapolis. The document, negotiated in part by future President John Adams, included terms for ending the Revolutionary War and established the United States as a sovereign nation. The treaty set territorial boundaries in North America formerly held by the British, outlined America’s fishing rights off the coast of Canada, and put an end to reprisals against British loyalists. Two other future presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, were among the delegates who ratified the document on January 14, 1874. Thomas Jefferson had planned to travel to Paris to join Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay to begin talks with the British in 1782. However, after a delay in his travel plans, Jefferson got word that a cessation of hostilities had been announced by King George III the prior December. Jefferson arrived in Paris in late February after the treaty had already been negot...