Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

“In his old age, John Adams recalled his youthful intimations of the providential forces at work: ‘There is nothing…more ancient in my memory […] than the observation that arts, sciences, and empire had always travelled westward. And in conversation it was always added, since I was a child, that their next leap would be over the Atlantic into America.’”

John Adams, one of the revolution’s leaders, conveys the observation that what we now see as Western civilization has traveled westward, from Greece, to Rome, to France, to Britain, and so on. Following this logic, he assumes that it is now America’s turn to have influence. 

“Though it seems somewhat extreme to declare, as one contemporary political philosopher has phrased it, that ‘the end of history’ is now at hand, it is true that all alternative forms of political organisation appear to be fighting a rearguard action against the liberal institutions and ideas first established in the United States in the late eighteenth century.”

Ellis refers to Francis Fukuyama’s prophecy of the end of history following the collapse of the Cold War. Though Ellis does not wish to make such a decisive statement himself, . he does state that the American form of government has become the predominate one throughout the world, as members of the revolutionary generation, such as Thomas Jefferson, felt it would. 

“…the dominant intellectual legacy of the Revolution, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, stigmatised all concentrated political power and even, in its most virulent forms, depicted any energetic expression of governmental authority as an alien force that all responsible citizens ought to repudiate and, if possible, overthrow…”

The legacy of the Revolution, which throws off the British oppressor, means that all organized forms of government, especially those that purport to rule from a distance, are deeply suspect. This will pose a challenge to federal authority, and yet strong government is needed to guarantee the survival of the Union.

“The achievement of the revolutionary generation was a collective enterprise that succeeded because of the diversity of personalities and ideologies present in the mix.”

The differences between the members of the revolutionary generation are an asset because such a spirit of debate and collective enterprise is needed to create a republic in a land as large and diverse as the United States.

“So Colonel Burr—the military title a proud emblem of his service in the American Revolution—was elegantly attired in a silk like suit (actually made of a fabric called bombazine) and carried himself with the nonchalant air of a natural aristocrat strolling to an appointment with destiny.”

Ellis’s description of Burr on his way to duel with Hamilton, is a typical of his writing style. The writing is richly descriptive and full of period details that bring the characters in his narrative to life. 

“In fact, the contradictory versions of the next four to five seconds of the duel might serve as evidence for the postmodern contention that no such thing as objective truth exists, that historic reality is an inherently enigmatic and endlessly negotiable bundle of free-floating perceptions.”

The duel between Burr and Hamilton, like so many other events in the American Revolution, is a myth composed of opposing viewpoints, not only of who is to blame, but also of the events that occurred. This idea is at play again later in the book when both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson compose different accounts of the Revolution. Jefferson’s becomes the accepted story only because his is more complete than Adams’.

“What had once seemed an honourable if illegal contest of wills, bathed in a mist of aristocratic glamour and clad in the armour of medieval chivalry, came to be regarded as a pathological ritual in which self-proclaimed gentlemen shot each other in juvenal displays of their mutual insecurity.”

All outmoded European customs are questioned in the new American republic. Dueling, which had once possessed the aura of nobility, is now an immature means of conflict resolution. 

“Assumption, as Madison came to regard it, was not primarily about money. It was about control, about trust, about independence.”

The 1790 incident where Virginian James Madison blocks Alexander Hamilton’s motion for a law where the federal government will assume state debts accrued by the Revolutionary War is less about money than sovereignty. The individual states, especially Virginia, are cautious of any power that pretends to help them but in reality threatens to take away their power to control their own destiny. 

“Hamilton’s cast of mind was instinctively economic. He visualised the concentration of capital in the hands of a select few as the essential precondition for commercial investment and economic growth […] When money was spread out, it was only money. When concentrated, it was capital.”

Hamilton’s opinion that England, with its centralized banking system, should be the model for America, demonstrates his practicality in economic matters. He is more concerned with the wealth of the new nation than with its fulfilment of its revolutionary charter. 

“Jefferson’s account of the dinner-table conversation distorts the truth by conveniently eliminating the preliminary negotiations, thereby giving the story a more romantic gloss by implying that three prominent leaders could solve an apparently intractable national problem by establishing the proper atmospherics.”

Jefferson’s myth that a single intimate dinner is enough to resolve the conflict between Hamilton and Madison, without the actual pre- and post-negotiations, indicates how the idealistic Jefferson is already trying to write the history of the American Revolution as though it had been a smooth series of poignant events rather than drawn-out negotiations.

“As John Adams so nicely put it, ‘in Virginia all Geese are Swans,’ meaning that Virginia’s elite genuinely believed that it had almost singlehandedly launched and led the war for independence.”

In the perspective of New Englander John Adams, proud Virginians such as Madison and Jefferson believe that their state had played a significant role in the Revolution and, as such, should strongly influence the country’s future. The idea that prosaic “geese” become poetic “swans” conveys the notion that Virginians have high opinions of themselves. 

“Jefferson’s initial draft of the Declaration of Independence had included language that described the slave trade as the perverse plot of an evil English monarch designed to contaminate innocent colonists.”

Jefferson’s initial idea of blaming the British for slavery aims to absolve his American countrymen of responsibility for the institution. Although this passage was scrapped from the final draft of the Declaration, it is a convenient argument, which perhaps explains why Jefferson drags his feet on the slavery issue when he is president. 

“The passionate conviction that the Revolution was like a mighty wave fated to sweep slavery off the American landscape actually created false optimism and fostered a misguided sense of inevitability that rendered human action or agency superfluous.”

The optimistic belief that the Revolution would inevitably do away with slavery is counterproductive because it means that no one takes any direct action to combat the problem. It is also arguably a delaying tactic, as the belief that the end of slavery is imminent and automatic means that no one has to bring the controversial issue to the table. 

“In isolated pockets of New York and New Jersey, and more panoramically in the entire region south of the Potomac, slavery was woven into the fabric of American society in ways that defied appeals to logic or morality.”

Speaking to the geographical divide between the overall emancipated North and the slave-owning South, Ellis shows that slavery has economic and social implications in addition to moral ones. It is subsequently the prohibitive cost of removing slavery from places that rely upon it that delays the whole process of abolition. 

“The new proslavery argument, then, drew on assumptions about the white Anglo-Saxon character of the emerging American nation that were latent but long-standing. No explicit articulation of those assumptions had been necessary in a national forum before 1790, because no frontal assault on slavery had been made that required a direct or synthetic response.”

As the moral affront on slavery is declared and many states outlaw the institution, the states that feel the economic and social pressures to keep their slaves concoct arguments that declare the emerging American nation Anglo-Saxon and white. Racial superiority claims chime in to support the institution of slavery. 

“Here was the cruelest irony—the effort to make the Revolution truly complete seemed diametrically opposed to remaining a united nation.”

Universal abolition is needed for the Revolution to reach its fullest potential; any other option would be hypocritical in a nation that professes to do away with all forms of coercion and non-appointed governance. However, for the new republic to survive, it needs the cooperation of all states, including those who argue that they need slavery for their economies and that the federal government should not be trespassing on their internal affairs.

“[Washington] was living the great paradox of the early American republic: What was politically essential for the survival of the infant nation was ideologically at odds with what it claimed to stand for. […] He had come to embody national authority so successfully that every attack on the government’s policies seemed to be an attack on him.”

George Washington, the first and only uncontested American president, becomes the embodiment of the Revolution and even has the capital city named after him. However, though he represents a much needed center of stability among arguing factions, Washington is so authoritative that he seems quasi-monarchical. This in turn stands at odds with the new nation’s republican ideals. 

“Whereas Washington regarded the national interest as a discrete product of political and economic circumstances shaping the policies of each nation-state at a specific moment in history, Jefferson envisioned a much larger global pattern of ideological conflict in which all nations were aligned for or against the principles that America had announced to the world in 1776.”

Washington’s isolationism and belief that, for the moment, the republican revolution is a uniquely American phenomenon contrasts with Jefferson’s expectation that what had happened in America would have a domino effect on other nations. Consequently, whereas Jefferson wants to organize his foreign policy according to the inevitability of this domino effect, Washington prefers to focus his energies on America and not interfere with what is going on in Europe. This tussle between isolationism and involvement in foreign affairs will characterize American politics long after the revolutionary generation. 

“Throughout the Farewell Address Washington had been exhorting Americans to think of themselves as a collective unit with a common destiny. To our ears it sounds obvious because we occupy the future location that Washington envisioned. […] Indeed, the act of exhorting was designed to enhance the prospect by talking about it as if it were a foregone conclusion, which Washington most assuredly knew it was not.”

At this point in history, as Washington invites Americans to put aside their differences and embrace unity, the notion of an American “common destiny” is novel and even risky. States fear being subordinate to a centralized government, and the divisive issue of slavery causes mistrust between the North and the South. 

“As a result of Washington’s Olympian status, the infant American republic had managed to avoid a contested presidential election prior to 1796. Exactly how such an event should proceed without tearing the country apart was still very much a matter of speculation and improvisation.”

A quality of improvisation governs the new republic, and each transition—for example, from the unanimously loved Washington’s rule to the first contested election—has to be felt through carefully or it could threaten to tear the country apart.

“The two major contestants for the presidency in 1796, then, not only possessed impeccable revolutionary credentials; they had also earned their fame as a team.”

Adams and Jefferson, rival candidates in the contested presidential election, have worked to secure the Revolution and maintain its legacy together, despite their differences. America’s early political influencers are closely knit, but while this collaboration has served them earlier, now these former friends will have to become rivals.

“Adams’ partner in the dance was Abigail, whose political instincts rivalled Madison’s legendary skills and whose knowledge of her husband’s emotional makeup surpassed all competitors. She had always been his ultimate confidante, the person he could trust with his self-doubts, vanities, and overflowing opinions.”

Adam makes his wife Abigail his closest confidante and thus pursues the politics of intimacy over those of ideology. He prefers to have a loyal band of people that he can trust around him rather than merely those who share his political opinions. As a result of both her personal inclinations and her close relationship with her husband, Abigail Adams possesses extraordinary power and influence for a woman in this period.

“According to Adams, the Revolution succeeded because of its ties to the past, which meant that, in the Jeffersonian sense, it was not really a revolution at all.”

In the correspondence they undertake toward the ends of their lives, Adams and Jefferson discuss the causes and effects of the Revolution. Adams concludes that it was an evolution from the English system, in the sense that the Continental Congress passed a resolution calling for new constitutions in each of the states on May 15, 1776, and this in turn precipitated the larger-scale revolution.