Founding Brothers: "Voices that speak to us across the ages…"

Whenever I walk into a bookstore, I always head first to the history and biography sections in the hopes of discovering something new and intriguing... and the larger the better! I have predilection for "fat" books; consequently, I whenever I leave a bookstore with a book tucked under my arm, that book usually is very well written, finely detailed, and very, very long… typically 500 pages or more!

Very rarely do I find a small book that combines the sterling attributes of outstanding writing style, historical accuracy, impartiality and brevity. One such volume that I found recently is Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis. Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History, this is an absolutely brilliant work, encapsulating in only 287 pages one of the most important and yet least understood the eras in American history: the two decades immediately following the American Revolution.

The years 1783-1804 were indeed the most critical years in our nation’s history. These were the years immediately after the American Revolution, after the United States had de facto gained its independence from Great Britain. During these two decades at the end of the eighteenth century, the United States, under the leadership of the same revolutionary "band of brothers" that had struggled mightily to guide the fledgling American nation through six years of war against its colonial masters, embarked upon the great experiment of establishing a republican form of government free from the fetters of all outside control. During these formative years, the U.S. Constitution was adopted as the supreme law of the land; a republican form of government was established; and America began to take its rightful place among the independent nations of the world.

Founding Brothers examines this critical juncture in American history and asks: how is it possible that the United States succeeded at its revolutionary enterprise when so many others in later history failed? At the outset, Ellis points out that independence from Britain was probably inevitable, but had the Revolution not occurred, that independence would have evolved over the course of the nineteenth century. But the Revolution did occur, and the American nation was successfully founded according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Why?

This book attributes the success of the American enterprise primarily to the revolutionary generation of Abigail and John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. These seven men and one woman collectively formed the catalyst that led to the peaceful, non-violent establishment of the new American nation. They were successful in part because they were an elite – they had been tried in the crucible of the Revolution and had been successful; they were intellectually and politically powerful; they knew each other; and they were aware of their contributions to posterity.

So far, so good… that takes care of the premise laid down by the author of Founding Brothers. A good, solid argument. Does the author back up his contentions, and if so, how? And how does he do it in the space of less than 300 pages?

What makes this book so fascinating is the approach taken by its author. Instead of relying on a simple chronological narrative of events to back up his theses, Ellis chooses to recount the closing years of eighteenth century American history through the eyes of the men and one woman who actually made that history.

Each chapter of Founding Brothers recounts an event in the lives of the people who made up the revolutionary generation. A few of those events are momentous; most are not. All of the events discussed in this book are examined in detail in the context of how the "founding brothers" reacted to them, and the effects of those events on the history of our nation. We learn what really led to the infamous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and what happened on that fateful day. We discover the great compromise that led to the selection of the site nation’s capital at its current location along the banks of the Potomac; how "The Silence" – the lack of public discourse over the issue of slavery, tacitly agreed to by both sides in the debate – was broken for a short time, and why. We observe George Washington as he prepares his Farewell Address to the nation, and come to a deeper understanding of why he eschewed a third term as President. We watch as partisanship marks the political landscape for the first time in 1796, when it became known that the Presidency was "up for grabs." We witness two lifelong friends – Thomas Jefferson and John Adams – become estranged from each other over deep political differences. And we see them reconcile through a decades-long correspondence after both had left the Presidency.

It didn’t take me long to read this book from cover to cover… about 2½ days. It is an extraordinarily well written book! Joseph Ellis is a historian with an eloquent narrative gift. His prose never flags; it is always lively, informative and entertaining, even when he’s analyzing events rather than narrating them.

I felt very comfortable with Ellis’s judgments and analyses. He doesn’t embark on any "revisionist" history here, preferring instead to amplify previously documented events in light of his own scholarship. Ellis portrays the seven "founding brothers" (eight if you count Abigail Adams) in a generally sympathetic light, although he’s careful to maintain a judicious sense of balance. Thomas Jefferson probably comes off the worst in Ellis’s narrative, being shown as more of a duplicitous, self-deceiving political animal – one who sacrificed a decades-long friendship with John and Abigail Adams on the altar of political expediency –than history records. George Washington is much less the remote "marble man" and more the human and humane man who loved his country dearly.

Ellis repeatedly reminds readers of a fundamental fact that we living in the twenty-first century are likely to forget: this was the very first time in history that colonies had broken away from their imperial masters and successfully established for themselves a new nation. The "founding brothers" took the risk of gaining independence from Britain and establishing a new nation without any idea of what the future would bring. They were fully aware of the possible consequences of their actions for the future; they knew they would leave a legacy of some kind, but there was simply no paradigm to follow… no other revolution had ever been successful, and no other nation had ever been established based on the right of individual self-determination. We readers of the twenty-first century have the luxury of looking back over two centuries of our Nation's history; we know how successful their experiment was! Their lasting legacy to us is embodied in the fact that they willingly took the risks they did without knowing what the future would hold.

Founding Brothers is unquestionably one of the finest books on American history I’ve read in many years. Lively and entertaining, judicious in its approach, and completely respectful of its subject matter, this book is sure to appeal to all readers with a desire to learn more about the men and women who founded our great nation.