If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the lasting impact of Alexander Hamilton's contributions to the United States as reflected in its current industrial and governmental structure.
George Will's quote suggests that rather than searching for a physical monument to Alexander Hamilton, one should recognize that the effects of his policies and vision are embodied in the modern United States. Hamilton's establishment of a strong central government and economic foundation are credited with shaping the country into a powerful industrial nation, contrasting with the more celebrated legacy of Thomas Jefferson.
In practice
In a discussion about the founding fathers' influences on modern America, this quote can emphasize Hamilton's vital role.
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,-and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking, - the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
History will tell you that borders are not inevitable, they hardly existed at the end of the 19th century.
History is not history unless it is the truth.
The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.
About 15,000 years ago, humans colonised America, wiping out in the process about 75% of its large mammals. Numerous other species disappeared from Africa, from Eurasia, and from the myriad islands around their coasts. The archaeological record of country after country tells the same sad story.
Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.
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