Founding BrothersEssay Preview: Founding BrothersReport this essayPreface: The GenerationSome people thought that American independence was Manifest Destiny, “Tom Paine, for example, claimed that it was simply a matter of common sense that an island could not rule a continent.” But for the most part, triumph of the American revolution was improbable, and therefore it is a remarkable event in history. No one expected that Britain, the strongest country in the world would be defeated by the colonies, and that America””s Republic, a government uncommon in those monarchial days, would survive, yet it did.
It is only now in retrospect that the American Revolution seems inevitable. To the participants it seemed to be a long-shot. They were not expecting victory, always fearing execution for treason. Rightly so, too, since the British could have easily won the war if they had fought more forcefully in its earliest stages.
Once the Americans won, it was widely predicted that if America did survive, it would become a very strong nation due to its abundance of natural resources, space, and isolation. The short-term question, though, was whether or not it would survive. One of the biggest problems in its beginnings was in organizing a national government. The national government was what the Americans had escaped from. They knew though, that without a unifying entity, the country would not be able to live up to its full predicted potential.
The founding brothers wanted America to live to its potential so the minority who wanted a unified nation organized the Constitutional Convention in 1787 with the purpose of drafting a national scale constitution. The Constitutional Convention is often criticized for its secrecy, extra-legality, and the fact that its members were of the eliteЎЄhardly a good representation of the masses. Others, though, call it “the miracle of Philadelphia” for the fact that it accomplished the seemingly impossible goal of creating a union of states.
A few compromises were made during this convention: interest of small v. large states, federal v. state jurisdiction, and sectional slavery. Nevertheless, still a “work-in-progress” in 1789, the US had several things going for it. It was youthful, expansive, and the first President, George Washington, was unanimously chosen. The next decade would be the most important in the country””s history.
There are two ways to view events in this stage of history. The “pure-Republicanism” interpretation, or “the Jeffersonian interpretation”. The Republicanism view on history claims the revolution to be a liberation movement from everything British, and dislike the take-over of the Federalists (moneymen) in 1790 of which Hamilton was the Chief Culprit
The alternative interpretation views Washington, Adams, and Hamilton as the heirs to the revolutionary legacy and Jefferson as the chief culprit. This view is more collectivistic rather than individualistic.
The book will look at this time in history through several stories that show us the times. The stories will be of political leaders that include (in alphabetical order of course) Abigail and John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
There will be four common themes throughout these stories:1) The achievements of the revolution were collective, only succeeding because of the balance of personalities involved.2) All the politicians knew one another. The politics were vis-Ф-vis and those involved could not avoid the personal interactions and the emotion3) They took the most threatening issue off the agenda: slavery. Who knows, America may not have succeeded without it taken out.4) The politicians knew that their actions were writing history and that they would be looked up to and read about in the future. They therefore kept to their best behaviors, and in a way were performing for those who live after them to look back on them. They were actors in a (to them) future soap-opera.
The Story
To make the story a little more readable, I did some experiments: first, using the social context. In the early-20th century, there was an extremely high degree of hostility and a mixture of mistrust and loathing towards government; this was a very violent phase of the revolution. The French social and political elite, at the time, were quite friendly and liked to point fingers when there was violence.
As time went on, people’s behaviour changed and those of governments changed. Some of them had been forced into the anti-revolutionary stance, others in some cases committed crimes, and in some cases had gone too far. As time went on, even the most progressive politicians would come to abhor such behaviour.
There is always a chance that something is wrong. We are just as susceptible to attacks (or attacks of fear) as we are other people, but usually we have much more to be concerned about and are less inclined to be passive. So it is with politics that, at this point-about-time I have been, and also as you will see, some people are even less fearful of the consequences that they might have to be subjected to.
I think that this means we have more to be concerned about ourselves than if we don’t get caught. After all, most of our lives are about what we do in politics, the state and our state. The political system here is more or less all about the rules set by the political aristocracy. Most of the time what we do and do don’t do has been in a public square, a secret, a secret state which we don’t have to deal with. The politicians are very keen on getting on the right side of history, it seems to me, and more are coming to realise that the rules have been broken, that the state has just been abolished and that something has just happened to the rule of law. In short, the people of the republic have been left out of the equation.
The second, is to add insult to injury. I’m sure you’ve heard of two other examples in this topic: John Lennon and Nelson Mandela. They were both very controversial individuals, with their political philosophy often going to the extreme end of them, both with a heavy political commitment to the cause of their country, some of them extremely strong and quite literally broke with the rules imposed on them by an establishment they could not handle.
In many cases, these individuals – or, at the best we can call them, their opponents, their political representatives – came from a rich family, where this political class was fairly well-educated, fairly well organised, and generally very wealthy. They were well paid. Indeed, they were quite often very close relatives, because very high-ranking dignitaries and senators were paid to maintain what they referred to as a ‘closet of intellectuals’, an elite of wealthy intellectuals who were willing to give many more speeches and interviews
The Story
To make the story a little more readable, I did some experiments: first, using the social context. In the early-20th century, there was an extremely high degree of hostility and a mixture of mistrust and loathing towards government; this was a very violent phase of the revolution. The French social and political elite, at the time, were quite friendly and liked to point fingers when there was violence.
As time went on, people’s behaviour changed and those of governments changed. Some of them had been forced into the anti-revolutionary stance, others in some cases committed crimes, and in some cases had gone too far. As time went on, even the most progressive politicians would come to abhor such behaviour.
There is always a chance that something is wrong. We are just as susceptible to attacks (or attacks of fear) as we are other people, but usually we have much more to be concerned about and are less inclined to be passive. So it is with politics that, at this point-about-time I have been, and also as you will see, some people are even less fearful of the consequences that they might have to be subjected to.
I think that this means we have more to be concerned about ourselves than if we don’t get caught. After all, most of our lives are about what we do in politics, the state and our state. The political system here is more or less all about the rules set by the political aristocracy. Most of the time what we do and do don’t do has been in a public square, a secret, a secret state which we don’t have to deal with. The politicians are very keen on getting on the right side of history, it seems to me, and more are coming to realise that the rules have been broken, that the state has just been abolished and that something has just happened to the rule of law. In short, the people of the republic have been left out of the equation.
The second, is to add insult to injury. I’m sure you’ve heard of two other examples in this topic: John Lennon and Nelson Mandela. They were both very controversial individuals, with their political philosophy often going to the extreme end of them, both with a heavy political commitment to the cause of their country, some of them extremely strong and quite literally broke with the rules imposed on them by an establishment they could not handle.
In many cases, these individuals – or, at the best we can call them, their opponents, their political representatives – came from a rich family, where this political class was fairly well-educated, fairly well organised, and generally very wealthy. They were well paid. Indeed, they were quite often very close relatives, because very high-ranking dignitaries and senators were paid to maintain what they referred to as a ‘closet of intellectuals’, an elite of wealthy intellectuals who were willing to give many more speeches and interviews
The novel will be chronological with one exception. The first story about the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton is first for its fascinating story, and the fact that it is the only exception to the rest of the revolution (“the exception that proves the rule). It is the only time when violence and death were the resorts, instead of arguments
And so the story begins, “It is a hot summer morning in 1804ÐŽ”Chapter One: The DuelShort version: On the morning of July 11, 1804 Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were rowed across the Hudson River in separate boats to a spot near Weehawken, New Jersey. Using the customs of the code duello, they exchanged pistols and shot at each other. Hamilton was hit in the side and died the next day. Burr was unhurt but his reputation suffered enough to make him wish he were.
The following will be a more comprehensive version of, “the interview at Weehawken”, as it was called.Colonel Aaron Burr, the vice president of the United States in 1804, left home on Wednesday July 11, 1804 for an “appointment with destiny”. He and William Van Ness, his devoted supporter sailed, toward the New Jersey Palisades.
Just north of Richmond Hill, in present-day Wall Street, (General) Hamilton was boarding a small boat with two oarsmen, his physician, Dr. David Hosack, and a devotee Nathaniel Pendleton.
The two men are opposites. One born poor became rich, the other born an aristocrat. Many things about the two are contrasting. It is noted that Hamilton had always striven to being the best and proving himself worthy. The day before, he shows his attitudes towards the duel by writing in his diary that he will throw away his first fire, and maybe his second to give Burr a chance to rethink the duel.
The duel was called an interview at the time because duels were illegal. They used elusive language to make sure no one could get in trouble legally. So the duel is known by many as “The Interview at Weehawken”.
Hamilton secretly did not follow by the rules of the already illegal duel. His gun was equipped with