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Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph J. Ellis
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In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award—winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals–Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison–confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.
The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers–re-examined here as Founding Brothers–combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes–Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence–Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history.
- Sales Rank: #8662 in Books
- Brand: Vintage
- Published on: 2002-02-05
- Released on: 2002-02-05
- Format: Bargain Price
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.98" h x .64" w x 5.13" l, .51 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Features
Amazon.com Review
In retrospect, it seems as if the American Revolution was inevitable. But was it? In Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis reveals that many of those truths we hold to be self-evident were actually fiercely contested in the early days of the republic.
Ellis focuses on six crucial moments in the life of the new nation, including a secret dinner at which the seat of the nation's capital was determined--in exchange for support of Hamilton's financial plan; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address; and the Hamilton and Burr duel. Most interesting, perhaps, is the debate (still dividing scholars today) over the meaning of the Revolution. In a fascinating chapter on the renewed friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson at the end of their lives, Ellis points out the fundamental differences between the Republicans, who saw the Revolution as a liberating act and hold the Declaration of Independence most sacred, and the Federalists, who saw the revolution as a step in the building of American nationhood and hold the Constitution most dear. Throughout the text, Ellis explains the personal, face-to-face nature of early American politics--and notes that the members of the revolutionary generation were conscious of the fact that they were establishing precedents on which future generations would rely.
In Founding Brothers, Ellis (whose American Sphinx won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1997) has written an elegant and engaging narrative, sure to become a classic. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney
From Library Journal
Having considered Thomas Jefferson in his National Book Award winner, American Sphinx, Ellis expands his horizons to include Jefferson's "brothers," e.g., Washington, Madison, and Burr.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
An outstanding biographer of Jefferson (American Sphinx, 1997), Ellis takes up new lines in this exploration of the "gestative" 1790s. He tailors six stories about political episodes that highlight a founder's character, convictions, and actions. Ellis' purpose in this storytelling is to underscore how vulnerable to dissolution the founders felt their creation to be, thereby explaining the controversies (such as the compromises with slavery) that to this day excite not just scholarly but general debate about what the Declaration and Constitution achieved. For example, Ben Franklin's last public act, signing a ban-the-slave-trade petition to the First Congress in 1790, provoked a floor argument so fierce about abolition it raised the spectre of disunion; Washington expressed relief with Congress' resolution to do nothing and debate no more about the matter. Ellis recounts equally fluidly and astutely such episodes as Hamilton's death; the bargain that sited the capital on the Potomac; Washington's Farewell Address; and the germination of parties. Palpably steeped in a career's worth of immersion in the early republic, Ellis' essays are angled, fascinating, and perfect for general-interest readers. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Lacks Focus
By MDCRABGUY
Founding Brothers is detailed, complex, and well written, but still comes up short. It devotes chapters to Alexander Hamilton, Washington's presidency, John Adams' presidency, and the relationship between Adams and Jefferson. Jefferson's presidency was skimmed over, and in my opinion is lacking from the discussion. His thesis focuses on the yin yang between states rights and federalism, particularly as it revolves around Adams and Jefferson, and Washington to a lesser degree. Much of his research comes from letters exchanged between Adams and Jefferson that document their thoughts and ideas about democracy and governing. As a side note it would be a stimulating discussion to see how these two opposing ideas for governing played out throughout US history. I like the book, but found much of the material unrelated to his main topic. Opening with the Hamilton and Aaron Burr duel was nothing but a distraction from the main topic.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
One of the best revolutionary-era books I've read
By Zachary Goldman
It's easy for those of us living in the 21st century to take the revolutionary generation for granted. The Founding Fathers, the American War of Independence, and the establishment of an independent United States have become so familiar to our country's history that it's difficult to imagine a different course of events. In "Founding Brothers," Joseph Ellis takes us back to the late 18th century to remind us about the fragility of the new republic, and how incredible it was that history turned out the way it did.
After grabbing our attention with page-turning coverage of the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Mr. Ellis focuses on the major issues the new republic faced following the establishment of the Constitution and the inauguration of the first president, George Washington. The immediate pressing issue was the financial status of the United States. With the states facing accumulated debt from the expenses of fighting the Revolutionary War, the debate centered on whether the federal government should assume the debt of the several states. Such a move was opposed by states like Virginia, which paid off its debts responsibly. In exchange for building a capital for the federal government on the Potomac, key supporters from the South agreed to a compromise. So began the accumulation of our national debt and the establishment of a site for the nation's capital of Washington D.C.
Other key issues during the time included ardent relations with France, the establishment of land and naval military forces, and the issue few chose to talk about: slavery. Mr. Ellis dedicates an entire chapter to the mindset the Founding Fathers had when dealing with one of the most polarizing issues at the time. For those of us living with 21st-century hindsight, it may seem obvious and reactionary to say that the revolutionary generation should have struck an immediate blow to the institution of slavery. However, without compromises with members of the South, the constitutional experiment would have ceased to exist. Mr. Ellis titles this chapter "The Silence," implying that the Founders decided this was the most pragmatic way to deal with the issue at the time. Unlike us, they could not foresee this issue being resolved through a civil war over seventy years down the road.
During this key moment in American history, Mr. Ellis does a remarkable job in reminding us that the Founding Fathers were living, thinking human beings who faced the unique and tough challenges that came with establishing a free republic. For readers who want to understand the often-romanticized history of the beginnings of the United States and the men who made it happen, you can't do much better than this book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Political Leadership Exemplified!
By O. Halabieh
Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:
1- "In the long run, the evolution of an independent American nation, gradually developing its political and economic strength over the nineteenth century within the protective constraints of the British Empire, was probably inevitable. This was Paine's point. But that was not the way history happened. The creation of a separate American nation occurred suddenly rather than gradually, in revolutionary rather than evolutionary fashion, the decisive events that shaped the political ideas and institutions of the emerging state all taking place with dynamic intensity during the quarter of the eighteenth century. No one present at the start knew how it would turn out in the end. What in retrospect has the look of a foreordained unfolding of God's will was in reality an improvisational affair in which sheer chance, pure luck both good and bad—and specific decisions made in the crucible of specific military and political crises determined the outcome. At the dawn of a new century, indeed a new millennium, the United States is now the oldest enduring republic in world history, with a set of political institutions and traditions that have stood the test of time. The basic framework for all these institutions and traditions was built in a sudden spasm of enforced inspiration and makeshift construction during the final decades of the eighteenth century."
2- " My own answers to these questions are contained in the stories that follow, which attempt to recover the sense of urgency and improvisation, what it looked and felt like, for the eight most prominent political leaders in the early republic. They are, in alphabetical order. Abigail and John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. While each episode is a self-contained narrative designed to illuminate one propitious moment with as much storytelling skill as I can muster, taken together they feature several common themes. First, the achievement of the revolutionary generation was a collective enterprise that succeeded because of the diversity of personalities and ideologies present in the mix...Second, they all knew one another personally, meaning that they broke bread together, sat together at countless meetings, corresponded with one another about private as well as public matters...Third, they managed to take the most threatening; and divisive issue off the political agenda...Fourth, the faces that look down upon us with such classical dignity in those portraits by John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart, and Charles Willson Peale, the voices that speak to us across the ages in such lyrical cadences, seem so mythically heroic, at least in part, because they knew we would be looking and listening. All the vanguard members of the revolutionary generation developed a keen sense of their historical significance even while they were still making the history on which their reputations would rest."
3- "In the wake of other national movements—the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions, as well as the multiple movements for national independence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—the leadership class of the successful revolution proceeded to decimate itself in bloody reprisals that frequently assumed genocidal proportions. But the conflict within the American revolutionary generation remained a passionate yet bloodless affair in which the energies released by national independence did not devour its own children. Th Burr-Hamilton duel represented the singular exception to this rule."
4- "By selecting the Potomac location, the Congress had implicitly decided to separate the political and financial capitals of the United "States. All the major European capitals—Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna—were metropolitan centers that gathered together the political, economic, and cultural energies of their respective populations in one place. The United States was almost inadvertently deciding to segregate them. The exciting synergy of institutional life in an all-ll-purpose national metropolis was deemed less important than the dangerous corruptions likely to afflict a nexus of politicians and financier."
5- "For the next seventy years, until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1986, the essence of political wisdom in the emergent American republic was to insist that such choices did not have to be made. But the recognition that these were the competing options, the contested versions, if you will, of what the core legacy of the American Revolution truly meant, first became visible in the summer of 1790. Thee Constitution did not resolve these questions; it only provided an orderly framework within which the arguments could continue. Nor would it be historically correct to regard the issues at stake as exclusively or even primarily constitutional. Legalistic debates over federal versus state sovereignty were just the most accessible handles to grab, t the safest and most politically suitable ways to talk about alternative national visions. The Compromise of 1790 is most famous for averting a political crisis that many statesmen of the time considered a threat to the survival of the infant republic. But it also exposed the incompatible expectations concerning Americas future that animated these same st statesmen. In a sense, it is a very old story which has been rendered even more familiar by the violent dissolution of revolutionary regimes i; in modern day emergent nations: Bound together in solidarity against t the imperialistic enemy, the leadership fragments when the common enemy disappears and the different agenda for the new nation must confront its differences. Securing a revolution has proven to be a much more daunting assignment than winning one. The accommodation that culminated in the agreement reached over Jefferson's dinner table provides a momentary exposure of the sharp differences dividing the leadership of the revolutionary generation: sectional versus national allegiance; agrarian versus commercial economic priorities; diffusion versus consolidation as social ideals; an impotent versus a potent federal government. The compromise reached did not resolve these conflicts so much as prevent them from exploding when the newly created government was so vulnerable; it bought time during which the debate could continue."
6- "The main themes of the Farewell Address are just as easy to state succinctly as they are difficult to appreciate fully. After declaring his irreversible intention to retire, Washington devoted several paragraphs to the need for national unity. He denounced excessive partisanship, most especially when it took the form of political parties pursuing a vested ideological agenda or sectional interest groups oblivious to the advantages of cooperation. The rest of the Farewell Address was then devoted to foreign policy, calling for strict American neutrality and diplomatic independence from the tangled affairs of Europe..."Washington was not claiming to offer novel prescriptions based on his original reading of philosophical treatises or books; quite the opposite, he was reminding his countrymen of the venerable principles he had acquired from personal experience, principles so obvious and elemental that they were at risk of being overlooked by his contemporaries; and so thoroughly grounded in the American Revolution that they are virtually invisible to a more distant posterity."
7- "Finally, Adams apprised Jefferson: "Your distinction between natural and artificial Aristocracy does not appear to me well founded." One might be able to separate wealth from talent in theory, but in practice, and in all societies, they were inextricably connected: "The five Pillars of Aristocracy," he argued, "are Beauty, Wealth, Birth, Genius and Virtues. Any one of the three first, can at any time, over bear any one or both of the two last." But it would never come to that anyway, because the qualities Jefferson regarded as artificial and those he regarded as natural were all mixed together inside human nature, then mixed together again within society, in blended patterns that defied Jefferson's neat dissections."
8- "They both (Adams and Jefferson) did anticipate, albeit from decidedly different perspectives,;, the looming sectional crisis between North and South that their partnership stretched across. "I fear there will be greater difficulties to preserve our Union," Adams warned, "than You and I, our Fathers Brothers Disciples and Sons have had to form it." Jefferson concurred, though the subject touched the most explosive issue of all—namely, the unmentionable fact of slavery. Even the ever-candid Adams recognized that this was the forbidden topic, the one piece of ground declared off-limits by mutual consent. With one notable exception, the dialogue between Adams and Jefferson, so revealing in its engagement of the conflicting ideas and impulses that shaped the American Revolution, also symbolized the unofficial policy of silence within the revolutionary generation on the most glaring disagreement of all."
9- "One would like to believe, and there is some basis for the belief, that each man (Adams and Jefferson) came to recognize in the other the intellectual and temperamental qualities lacking in himself; that they, in effect, completed each other; that only when joined could the pieces of the story of the American Revolution come together to make a whole. But the more mundane truth is that they never faced and therefore never fully resolved all their political differences; they simply outlived them."
10- "He conceded (Adams) that the era of the American Revolution had been "a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race," but the jury was still out on its significance. He doubted whether the republican principles planted by the founding generation would grow in foreign soil. Neither Europe nor Latin America were ready for them. Even within the United States, the fate of those principles was still problematic. He warned that America was "destined in future history to form the brightest or blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall in time to come be shaped by the human mind!" Asked to pose for posterity, he chose to go out hurling it a challenge."
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