Book Review: Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis Essay

Chapter One: The Duel was a well-known duel in American history. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. July 11, 1804 is the exact date when the duel took place. It was presumed to have taken place in Weehawken, New Jersey; when in actuality, the duel really took place on a ledge above the water near Weehawken. This isolated spot was foolproof for illegal acts like this. Hamilton ends up dying because of Burr. Burr shot him from a distance. The bullet hit a rib and then ricocheted off into his spine mortally wounding Hamilton. Hamilton was the one that chose the position and the weapons for the duel, but the public thought that Burr killed him in cold blood. The public also started to call Burr the new Benedict Arnold. (Benedict Arnold was considered a traitor.) Burr was never harmed in the whole incident. Because everyone thought Burr was the initiator, he had to leave the city and this was the decline of his political power. Both of these men’s reputations were failing by 1804. Hamilton was appointed the first Secretary of Treasury under George Washington after the Revolutionary War. The Federalist Party was in decline and Hamilton did not hold office for approximately ten years. Burr lost the support

The founding fathers, or as the book calls them the founding brothers, are an assorted group of men from wildly different backgrounds. In political terms, they were divided. Yet, they came to together to help shape this country into the place it is today. Now on their journey towards the making of this country they did encounter some trouble. They encountered heated debates among themselves though for getting through these debates they show just why they deserve to be called, founding brothers.

At the time of the duel, Hamilton’s Federalist party was in decline after losing the Presidency. After his dull Vice Presidency, Burr had lost the support of even his own Republican Party. This fear of political amnesty explains why these two would be willing to risk their lives for political reputation. Honor was a reoccurring theme in this chapter, as was the separation between the private and

The Quartet by Joseph Ellis was a novel to provide detail of the years following the American Revolution, and how the Quartet of George Washington, James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton each provided a quality in guiding America toward the right direction. Ellis creates a theme almost as if the reader is on a tour guide, because he explains the perspective on how America was being created between the “Second Revolution” of the years 1783-1789. But, the main goal Ellis wanted to make clear was this time period was the process of how America became a Nation. After finishing the book, Ellis was effective in making the case that the Quartet of Washington, Jay, Hamilton, Madison, as well as other major influences, greatly affected the “transition from confederation to nation.” Each Quartet presented a value in help transitioning America into a Nation, and Ellis provides excellent examples to solidify that claim.

After the colonies gained independence, the founding fathers soon found that becoming a new independent nation was going to be a difficult task. The biggest task was deciding on the division of power in the government. This issue divided the people into two groups, the federalists and the Jeffersonian republicans. Alexander Hamilton led the federalists and Thomas Jefferson led the republicans. These two important men in history would later show how the challenges of becoming a new nation. In this essay I will be analyzing the ideas of Linda K. Kerber’s “The Fears of the Federalists,” to Drew R. McCoy’s “The Fears of the Jeffersonian Republicans.” Furthermore, comparisons will be made about both essays to gain a better understanding of the struggles of government in early America.

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation is a well written narrative about America’s founding fathers and the years that followed the Revolutionary War. Ellis’s book is appealing to anyone who is interested in learning about the roots of our founding brothers. The book is also well written in the aspect of not being long and drawn out into one big story. Instead, Ellis breaks the book down in to six stories that talk about different situations with American historical figures. Ellis uses more than one type of historical writing throughout the six stories. He uses social, economic and political types of history throughout this book.

The book Founding Brothers - The Revolutionary Generation consists six stories, each of them focuses on a significant creative achievement or failure of seven important men of the early United States. They are George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Aaron Burr. Joseph Ellis has depicted these founding brothers – or founding fathers - in their efforts to lay the republic’s foundation of the most liberal nation – states in the history of Western Civilization.

The Founding Brothers tells the tales of the ordinary lives and challenges that the founders or framers of the United States faced. One of the challenges was the common goal to ensure that the nation that the forefathers helped build would stand the test of time. The author, Joseph Ellis, wants the reader to understand better that the founders were more than just men, that were all white and male. Instead, the founders were men that knew the problems that the country was facing after its gaining independence from the British in the American Revolutionary War. They all fought each other tooth and nail over things that they felt were essential for this new republic to survive. Nevertheless, they all met each other to form political compromises that would aid in building the strength and future position of the new republic. These compromises would help settle many disputes that threatened to divide the new nation in half. Even though, they dealt with issues -like slavery, they understood that the entire world was watching and waiting to see what would become of this new government system that.

In Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers, the novel surrounds the major political leaders during the 1790s. The acts and intentions of these few leaders were responsible for the shaping of this national institution. Ellis explores this revolutionary generation full of honorable men who argued just as much as any other generation, but acted for posterity and themselves. Throughout the book, the theme of truth is expressed in the accounts of the political leaders and Ellis’ writing. The theme can be found through the accounts of Hamilton and Burr, Washington, and Adams and Jefferson.

Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Print.

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, a non-fictional history book written by Joseph Ellis, discusses these individuals and how thy were able to overcome obstacles that they had faced in their lives, and how each of their characteristics had taken a great role in the making of each decision, even if at the cost of one’s own

I had intended to post Part II of the WWI question last night, but got caught up doing movie reviews on Life of Ando. So to slake your ravenous historical thirst in the meantime, here is my assignment from my history class this past week. If you’re really into American history and how the politics of the early Republic shook out, Jefferson vs. Hamilton is a great study. It’s also a little, I guess comforting, to know that as bad as we think today’s politicians are, politics was always a very dirty game. Like Bismarck said, “Laws are like sausages. Better to not see them being made.” And as Ecclesiastes says, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

brothers inclined to each other. They worked together on the combat zone, which is true of most of the illustrations Ellis represents. Since they disputed often, Hamilton contemplated that Burr would cultivate to dismantle it. One can say that Burr was treacherous in Hamilton's thoughts. Ellis relates Burr to descriptions like "self serving,"

politics. The recent historiography of the incident provides us with a complex, evolving web of