Founding Brothers Chapter Summary

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.

In the books The Quartet and Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Ellis and Joyce Appleby discuss their thoughts on two important moments in American history and how they believe them to be revolutionary. The Quartet describes the political situation of the United States immediately following the American Revolution and how it made the transformation from a confederation into a republic. To do this, it follows the actions of four prominent men – George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – as they work toward their goal of bringing about a new national government and discusses nationalism, issues such as economics and expansion, and arguments about personal, state, and federal powers. He argues that the debate over the Constitution was between “nationalists” and “confederationists”, that the second Revolution was a by-product of the first in that it took the systems of the newly-independent states and reworked them into a coherent national collective, and that without this change, the United States couldn’t have become a modern model of government.

In the book Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis, the author relates the stories of six crucial historic events that manage to capture the flavor and fervor of the revolutionary generation and its great leaders. While each chapter or story can be read separately and completely understood, they do relate to a broader common theme. One of Ellis' main purposes in writing the book was to illustrate the early stages and tribulations of the American government and its system through his use of well blended stories. The idea that a republican government of this nature was completely unprecedented is emphasized through out the book. Ellis discusses the unique problems that the revolutionary generation experienced as a result of governing under the

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.

David O. Stewart, by profession, is a lawyer with a resume that includes everything from arguing appeals at the Supreme Court level to serving as a law court to the acclaimed Junior Powell. But in writing The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (specifically, I read the First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition May 2008, copyrighted in 2007), he uses that experience in law to prove himself a gifted storyteller. Two hundred sixty-four pages long, this United States history nonfiction book does indeed have the substance to engage the reader throughout. It has special features that include two appendices featuring the elector system and the actual constitution of 1787, author’s notes, suggested further reading, acknowledgments and an index (which escalate the total length of the book to three hundred forty-nine pages long).

During the times after the creation the United States Constitution the Founding Fathers, or Founding Brothers as this book calls them, explored many different challenges. “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” talks about this challenges and events in different sections that focus on seven historical figures at the time: George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Adam Burr. Joseph J. Ellis talked about six events, in six chapters, from the time in American history that shaped the ideas that created the United States government that is known today. The chapters are called as followed The Duel, The Dinner, The Silence, The Farewell, The Collaborators, and The Friendship. After a brief introductory chapter called The Generation , in which the reader is introduced to the setting and characters, the story begins.

Joseph J. Ellis, the author of “The Founding Brothers,” identifies and give a better vision of what is happening in the American Revolution. Ellis states, “On the inevitability side, it is true there was voices back then urging prospective patriots to regard American Independence as an early manifest destiny” (3). The book introduces the revolutionaries: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin. Ellis focuses on the characteristics, actions, events, and the ideologies differences that affect the American Revolution.

Most novels or documentaries regarding the Revolutionary Generation, largely focus on the war for independence, which includes the Continental Congress. Not often in media, does one find a post-war political book. The Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis dives in the complexities faced by the Founding Fathers of America. As they saw themselves as brothers (with the exception of Abigail Adams), they often did not agree on most of each other’s ideas. A prime example would be the 1790’s, when America witnessed the birth of political parties. The Founding Fathers encountered numerous tests as they tried to establish a democratic republic, due to the fact of various different visions

The first chapters introduce the life of the American people and the failed of the Articles of Confederation which is in chronological time, yet the division later in issues makes the reader confuse about the time line. The authors based their work mostly on Madison “notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787” and also in Georgia delegate William Pirce Farrand’s records; the “notes” of Pierce and Madison, focuses on the conflicts and compromises giving the book a sense of a time line, yet the biographies of some of the other delegates cause confusion on the historical time of the overall book.

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

In Founding Brothers, the three most important chapters that impact America today were The Duel, The Silence, and The Farewell and the least important was The Friendship. The book is about our seven founding brothers and about different events that happened to them in post revolutionary America. It is a nonfiction book that was written to show what they experienced and how they interacted with others.

Whose side would you have been on in the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson’s or Alexander Hamilton’s? Both of these men served under George Washington in the first presidential cabinet, yet they had very different views of what government should be (Davis 86). My objective in this research essay is to inform the reader of why there was so much controversy between these two founding fathers, and to determine which side had the better views for our newly forming country.

Joseph J.Ellis provides an insight of how a nation emerged, with a group of memorable individuals that founded the American Republic. Founding Brothers deals with confrontations and crucial issues that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George Washington encountered during an undefined decade where a fragile nation was being formed. With its main and secondary theme that focuses on the struggles the leaders of the Revolutionary Generation dealt with for the success of a Union, Founding Brothers is a marvelous book for historical readers that want an understanding of the political chaos of the early republic.