With my wife and child away on vacation for a few days, I had the opportunity this evening to enjoy a rare luxury: quiet time to read. It provided a chance for me to finish the book that I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis, an insightful look at the leaders who staked their lives and fortunes on the revolutionary notion that political authority rests with those who are governed.

In just six chapters, Ellis quite definitively shows us that “all seamless historical narratives are latter-day constructions” and that none of the history that we take for granted today was at all predestined. Indeed, given the uncertainties of the period and the contentiousness of the issues being debated, it is no small miracle that the United States of America survived its infancy. The strains at the seams of the virgin American fabric were nearly enough to tear the young nation to shreds. And yet, with good guidance and even better luck, the union survived, thrived, and became the strongest nation in the modern world.

I won’t even try to cover as much ground as the book itself does here, but will merely attempt to convey some of the points that struck my interest. (And, although I am sorely tempted not to, I will refrain from drawing parallels to our current political situation.)

The Duel

What would prompt vice president Aaron Burr and erstwhile Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton to meet in Weehawken, NJ, for an “interview,” a thinly veiled euphemism for a duel? They shared a mutual loathing and were intensely antagonistic to each other’s careers, that is true, but even at that time, dueling was not the way such disputes were resolved. (Dueling was, in fact, illegal, which is why so much secrecy surrounded the so-called “interview at Weehawken.”)

Both men, it turns out, were fighting for what they believed was best for the future of their country. Both felt that the other’s continued existence put that future in jeopardy.

At that formative time, the United States had not yet established institutions that could withstand the corruption of those who held power. Public offices were still largely defined by those who held them, not the other way around. Both men saw in each other a threat that would, they thought, bring the whole nation down, a threat that was worth dying to defend against.

As Ellis puts it:

[T]he fate of the American experiment with republican
government still required virtuous leaders to survive. Eventually, the
United States might develop into a nation of laws and established
institutions capable of surviving corrupt or incompetent public
officials. But it was not there yet. It still required honorable and
virtuous leaders to endure. Both Burr and Hamilton came to the
interview
because they wished to be regarded as part of such
company.

(This chapter, taken out of the otherwise chronological order of the rest of the book, highlights the only time that political arguments among members of the revolutionary generation ended in violence (and Hamilton’s death) rather than debate.)

The Dinner and The Silence

Long before Hamilton’s unfortunate demise, he was the architect of a grand scheme to restore America’s creditworthiness by having the federal government assume the debts of the states. This would make the debt far easier to manage, but would also give the federal government more power over the states than the states were willing to allow. The issue of Assumption, then, became the first test of the doctrine of states’ rights.

Another issue about which no agreement could be reached was the location of the permanent capital of the union. The twin issues of Assumption and Residency represented an impasse. In attempting to reach a compromise, Jefferson invited Hamilton, the architect and chief proponent of the Assumption Plan, and Madison, the chief opponent, to a private dinner, where the details of Assumption were quietly bargained in exchange for guarantees that the new capital would be built along the Potomac (thereby settling the Residency issue) and for silence on the one issue that threatened to tear the nation apart more than any other, the abolition of slavery.

The revolutionary generation, for the most part, wanted to do away with the practice, which was inconsistent with the aims of the revolution. The primary proslavery argument was simply that it was not a problem that could be adequately addressed. There was no way the government could afford to compensate the slaveholders for their property without spreading the payments out over several generations (during which time the remaining slave population would still continue to grow). Beyond that, though, was the fact that there was no place for the freed slaves to go (neither camp envisioned freed slaves living among white people) and no money to help them get there.

There were many opportunities for the Founders to abolish the practice of slavery, but none of the leaders at the time could risk the threat of Southern secession, which would have immediately dismembered the nation. In part as a way to accomodate Hamilton’s assumption plans, the problem of slavery was left for subsequent generations solve.

The Farewell

It is quite impossible to overestimate the importance George Washington played in keeping the nation together. So when he sought to retire from public life at the end of his first term, it caused considerable panic. Washington was later urged to stay on for another term, but the departure problem came back to haunt the nation again at the end of his second. Washington was the embodiment of the “monarchical principle” espoused by his vice president, John Adams, who emphasized the need for one figure (preferably a strong, disinterested executive) to protect the common citizens from “the inevitable accumulation of power by the wealthy and wellborn.”

As an executive, Washington did this quite well, but the monarchical principle didn’t serve Adams nearly as well when he took over the presidency. This may have been due in part to the fact that Adams, as the only member of the revolutionary generation to have produced a male heir, was viewed as a “monarchist” who sought to install his son John Quincy as his successor. There was, however, another readily apparent cause: the emergence of party politics, the scourge of good governance from Adams’ day forward.

Parting thoughts

There is a great deal more to the book than I cover here, all of it more artfully described and more interesting to read. I would very much like to give this book a second, more thorough reading, but my family won’t be away on vacation for long, and I have many other books clamoring for my attention. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in American history; doubly so to those who typically are not.

If I am spotted wandering among the history shelves at the local library, this book will be the reason why.