Alexander Hamilton, the man whose image graces our ten-dollar bill, was born out of wedlock in A number of his political opponents made sure to remind the world of the circumstances of his birth.
Perhaps foremost among these opponents was John Adams, who appeared to harbor a special dislike for Hamilton. Adams had a special expression that he came up with for Hamilton: "bastard brat of a Scotch pedler. Yet I loose all Patience, when I think of a bastard brat of a Scotch Pedler, daring to threaten to undeceive the World in their Judgment of Washington, by writing a history of his battles and Campaigns.
According to the technical sense of the word, Hamilton was indeed a bastard. Whether he was a brat is, however, subject to debate. The notion that Grant was overly fond of imbibing has been talked about quite a bit. Less examined is how colorful some of the charges were. Lewis Cass, who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic candidate for president in he lost to Zachary Taylor , did not receive so much invective as to make him a particularly notable candidate.
But he did manage to earn the dislike of Horace Greeley, and Greeley happened to own a newspaper, The New York Tribune and was not shy about using it for political ends. Yet Greeley appeared to save his truly memorable insults for his personal correspondence.
Pimp is not a new word; it has been used in English since at least to refer to a criminal who facilitates liaisons with a prostitute. It has never been considered a polite word. So there was a certain degree of astonishment when, in , Kenneth Rayner a former Congressman from North Carolina gave a speech in which he referred to President Franklin Pierce as one such creature:. A man sunk so low we can hardly hate. We have nothing but disgust, pity, and contempt. It seems safe to say that a number of people did not like Abraham Lincoln.
