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A portrayal of some of the key founders, showing their considerable differences, this book gives us more a glimpse of their relationships than their individual biographies. Ellis emphasizes the commitment of most founders to working together to create a new nation via constructive dialogue. Ellis points out the uniqueness of the American experiment in its time, although it has served as a model for countless revolutions since. Even after the unlikely victory of the Revolutionary war, we may have had experienced failure if, after the inability of the loosely crafted Articles of Confederation to create a cohesive nation, our leaders had not reconvened to create a strong Constitution. (P 6) And we have a Constitution only because these founders put aside their differences to engage in constructive dialogue, an art largely lost on today’s politicians. The most radical viewpoint of all was: “Sovereignty did not reside with the federal government or the individual states; it resided with the people.” (P 9) Historians often have put themselves into one camp – “Jeffersonians or Hamiltonians” – and told the story from the limited viewpoint of a belief that smaller or larger government is best. (P 15) But these divisions eventually morphed in to political parties, rather than all out warfare, except during the Civil War. Ellis claims that a diversity of views – then as well as now – is a source of strength.

Ellis recounts the 1804 duel between Hamilton and Burr, which, though illegal, was representative of the factions and jealousies that had developed between many of the founders. We are told that the Federalism of Hamilton represented the will of the young nation to survive and that Burr was an inveterate schemer who would even consider participation in a successionist movement if it could thrust him into a position of power. (P 42)

Ellis tells us of what we today would call a “backroom” collaboration between Hamilton, who counted on the Federal government assuming state debts essential to having his centralization plan for the government succeed, and Madison, who was blocking the legislation. This deal-making was arranged by Jefferson who held a dinner meeting between them. In exchange for Madison’s agreement not to block the legislation, Hamilton backed establishing the location of the new Capitol in the South. (P 49) Madison is given credit for bringing together the forces that resulted in the framing of the Constitution. Also, Hamilton and Madison collaborated on the bulk of the Federalist papers under the pseudonym “Publius.” (P 54)

Ellis describes a little-known episode where resolutions to end slavery were brought before the House of Representatives when it had barely begun to function, one signed by Benjamin Franklin. These were, of course, defeated because the Constitution mandated that overturning slavery not even be considered until 1808. (P 83)

In 1796, toward the end of his Presidency, when he had attained a god-like status with the American people, Washington’s Farewell Address appeared in print in all major newspapers of the nation. The Address was never delivered as a speech. It not only announced Washington’s retirement, which set a precedent for a two term limit for Presidents not broken until FDR, but it proclaimed his vision for how our country could remain viable and true to its mission. Coupled with his insistence that the enshrinement of any individual would defeat the entire cause of the revolution, Washington “denounced excessive partisanship,” that endangered substituting devotion to “party” with devotion to the principles of the nation. Another point was that the young nation could not afford to take sides in disputes between other nations. (Pp 128-31)

John Adams, although probably the second most popular American statesman, hated the limits placed on him by the job of Vice President under Washington, but hoped that his patience would pay off in the presidency. His statements about the need for a strong President gave many the impression that he was a monarchist. Adams and Jefferson were friends during the days leading up to and after the revolution, but had deep philosophical differences that eventually drove a wedge between them. Adams was for what he considered the amount of government needed to make the country strong, and Jefferson was for as little as possible. Adams was especially incensed by his friend’s support for the French Revolution, which he considered dangerous due to its excesses. (P 170) Jefferson also was a mentor to the younger Madison, who managed Jefferson’s campaign for the Presidency while Jefferson professed to be a retired farmer at Monticello. Adams won in 1796 by three electoral votes. (P 178) Because the two largest recipients of electoral votes became President and Vice President, the result was a rivalry within the administration. Once Adams was President, the ideological warfare between Republicans and Federalists became personal as well as political. The Sedition Act, passed by the Federalists but used against the Republicans, actually created celebrity for those charged under it. (P201) Jefferson defeated Adams in the next election, and Adams fumed for the rest of his life how Jefferson had betrayed not only him but, in his view, the principles of the founding. Jefferson, on the other hand the master of decorum, maintained that there was always an underlying respect between them, even when Adams packed the courts, particularly with John Marshall as Supreme Court Chief Justice, just before Jefferson took office. Eventually, in 1812, the ice between the two ex-friends was broken by a note from Adams, with the two eventually once again warming to each other and leaving a series of indispensable letters that shed light on the thoughts of these American giants on what they had seen and how they hoped to be remembered. They even were complimentary to each other at times about the role of the other in American independence, but at times blamed each other for the partisan nature that politics had already taken from our country’s earliest stages. The crucial difference between them was, and remains today, whether the ship of state can be trusted to proceed on its course once unmoored from unfriendly waters, or if it requires continual guidance to determine and continue on its course. (P 248)