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user-inactivated · 3466 days ago · link · · parent · post: Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong
The most important politician in the United States until Lincoln. His influence was less notable than a Madison or a Washington, for a variety of reasons (economics isn't sexy, the Federalist Papers were originally pseudonymous, etc) -- but you would still 100 percent have heard of him if a) he hadn't been shot in 1804, and b) he hadn't been born out of wedlock in the West Indies, but rather to some rich Virginia cotton-grower. And needless to say every American schoolkid hears a lot about him, although probably not anything very worthwhile.