Founding Brothers Themes

Out of the six chapters, I prefer to write about Chapter One and Two: The Duel and The Dinner. This book was very intriguing and helped in the understanding of the post-revolutionary America and the lives of the founding brothers and what they went through.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 many U.S. history classes all over the country, the Alexander Hamilton Vs. Aaron Burr duel is taught with little detail. Hamilton is a founding father, Burr is the Vice President, they challenge each other to a duel and Hamilton dies. However there is much more to the story as Hamilton consciously made the decision to throw away his shot and give Burr all of the power. This may not be the kind of decision that most people would make in this situation, but for Hamilton it was necessary. Alexander Hamilton had been through a great deal of hardships in his life. In the beginning his childhood was dark and filled with death, he tainted his love life and career with an affair, he gave his son fatal advice, and by speaking what he thought to be true he landed himself a spot in the duel against Burr. Within all of these aspects, Hamilton found himself helpless and no matter what he tried, he could not seem to fix the situation. Perhaps Hamilton decided to lay his fate in the hands of someone else for once because he never truly felt in control.

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

So Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Duelling had begun to be outlawed, and at that point the practice was illegal in both [New York](/usa/states/newyork/) and [New Jersey](/usa/states/newjersey/). But, as the law wasn’t as heavily enforced in the former, they went down to Weehawken, New Jersey to duel. After a count, both men fired their guns. Burr’s shot hit Hamilton. Hamilton's missed---it is unknown if it was a bad shot, or if he was making a point of shooting into the air and away from

This duel is initiated due to the loss of the election which Alexander Hamilton sides against Burr. During this duel Alexander Hamilton points his gun to the air to show that he does not want to kill Burr but he fires and kills Alexander anyway. After this he talks of how he immediately regrets killing him and how he should have known that they could have coexisted had they put the dispute behind them. He shows true grief and remorse when he says “He(Alexander) may have been the first one to die but I’m the one who paid for it”(275). This paints Burr as not a villain with malicious intent he is just portrayed as impulsive and blinded by his lack of

Stephen Ambrose’s “To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian” is a work of the author’s thoughts and reevaluation of his feelings and lectures toward American history. In the first chapter called “The Founding Fathers”, Stephen Ambrose discusses his viewpoints towards the founding fathers, Jefferson and Washington. The chapter shows his full acknowledgement of Jefferson’s and Washington’s dark past of their positions as slaveholders as well as highlighting some of their prejudices. However despite these unfortunate circumstances, he stresses the importance and value of these two historical individuals. He reminds the readers of their struggles, their hopes and dreams that had inspired future generations after them. He further commentates

1 Joseph J. Ellis, “The Duel,” in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: