“Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”

Joseph J. Ellis, “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”, Vintage Books, 2002, 248 Pages (Paperback).

An excellent book (winner of the Pulitzer prize)—a real pleasure to read, yielding a truly accurate understanding of the American Revolution and the following process involved in coming to an agreement on a Constitution and the following formation of bitterly partisan political parties as seen through the points of view of Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson.

Alfred North Whitehead observed that there were only two instances in Western history when the leadership of an emerging imperial power performed as well in retrospect, as anyone could reasonably expect. The first was Rome under Caesar Augustus and the second was the United States in the late eighteenth century. This book tries to explain why this happened in the U.S. through the stories of the aforementioned individuals. Unquestionably the most important and consequential is Washington, his sensitivity and his attention to the precedents his actions would and did have. All of these individuals up to 1789 felt an obligation to precedent and Washington particularly extended this into his presidency.

My notes:
Pg. 9: The American Revolution is considered to contain two separate phases. The first is the 1776 Declaration of Independence—i.e., Revolution. The second is the 1787-1788 creation of the Constitution and the formation of a nation. The most important compromise made to create the nation involved the issue of slavery. The compromise allowed the slave trade to continue for twenty more years and then cease; note, this is the importation of slaves, not the practice of slavery. The author makes the case that any clear resolution of the slavery question in the Constitutional Convention, one way or the other, rendered ratification of the Constitution virtually impossible.

Pg. 48: The Dinner Chapter: To summarize, Hamilton wanted the federal government to assume all state debts from the Revolutionary War. It was his idea that this would strengthen the national government by making the states fiscally tied to it (the states would pay taxes back to the national government). His Federalist Party colleagues, those who wanted a strong national government, agreed with him. On the other side of the issue was James Madison, a Republican, who felt that a strong national government was against the very principles of the Revolution. Obviously, he was against the plan. As a compromise, Hamilton agreed to allow the nation's capital to be built on the Potomac River, as opposed to farther north if Madison & Jefferson went along with his "assumption" plan. Madison conceded and the rest is history.

Pg. 63: Madison and Jefferson seemed to think that economic policy consisted of getting out of the way to allow the natural laws of economic recovery and growth to proceed. But Hamilton thought the conditions for economic development needed to be created, and then enduringly overseen. His model was England, with its national bank, regulated commerce, and powerful finance ministers. From the perspective south of the Potomac, of course, these were the institutions and symbols the American Revolution had supposedly repudiated forever.

Pg. 193. One of the most interesting parts of the book involves John Adams, when president,  growing distrust of Alexander Hamilton. For two years, Hamilton had been issuing directives to Adams’s cabinet behind the scenes; Adam paid little attention to this as he never paid much heed to his cabinet anyway. In the summer of 1798, however, Hamilton persuaded his Federalist colleagues in the Congress to authorize the creation of a vastly expanded Provisional Army of between ten thousand and thirty thousand soldiers in preparation for the possible outbreak of war with France. Adams strongly preferred a naval force. Standing armies struck him as inherently dangerous and expensive items. What possible rationale could exist for a large American land force since the conflict with France was occurring on the high seas? Then he had an epiphany: Hamilton intended to make the Army his personal instrument of power. It was a foregone conclusion that Washington would be called out of retirement to head the force, but equally predictable that the aging general would delegate actual command to the former aide-de-camp, Hamilton. Adam suspected that Hamilton saw himself as an American Napoleon, poised to declare martial law and present himself as the available savior. If Adams had been able to read Hamilton’s private correspondence, he would have discovered that Hamilton’s plans were quite grandiose: He hoped to march his conquering army through Virginia, where recalcitrant Republicans would be treated like the Whiskey Rebels, then down through the Louisiana Territory and into Mexico and Peru, liberating all the inhabitants from French and Spanish domination and offering membership in the expanding American republic. Although Adams had gone along with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the prospect of a Hamilton-led army marching conjured up the demise of the republican government altogether in the classical last act—a military dictatorship. Therefore, Adams, on his own, resumed treaty talks with France and, much to the surprise of everyone, negotiated a satisfactory end to the troubles.

Pg. 201: There are only a few universal laws of political life, but one of them guided the Republicans during the last year of the Adams presidency—namely, never interfere when your enemies are busily engaged in the flagrant acts of self-destruction. As soon as the Federalists launched their prosecutions of Republican editors and writers under the Sedition Act—a total of eighteen indictments were filed—it became clear that the prosecutions were generally regarded as persecutions. Most of the defendants became local heroes.

P. 223: Much of the historical information of the Revolutionary period comes to us from the 158 letters exchanged between Jefferson and Adams from 1812 to 1826. These letters hash over both the Republican and Federalists points of views during the Revolutionary and Constitutional eras. They both died within five hours of each other on July 4, 1826.