The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character

The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character
Author: Andrew S. Trees
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691233535

The American Revolution swept away old certainties and forced revolutionaries to consider what it meant to be American. Andrew Trees examines four attempts to answer the question of national identity that Americans faced in the wake of the Revolution. Through the writings of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, Trees explores a complicated political world in which boundaries between the personal and the political were fluid and ill-defined. Melding history and literary study, he shows how this unsettled landscape challenged and sometimes confounded the founders' attempts to forge their own--and the nation's--identity. Trees traces the intimately linked shaping of self and country by four men distrustful of politics and yet operating in an increasingly democratic world. Jefferson sought to recast the political along the lines of friendship, while Hamilton hoped that honor would provide a secure foundation for self and country. Adams struggled to create a nation virtuous enough to sustain a republican government, and Madison worked to establish a government based on justice. Giving a new context to the founders' mission, Trees studies their contributions not simply as policy prescriptions but in terms of a more elusive and symbolic level of action. His work illuminates the tangled relationship among rhetoric, politics, self, and nation--as well as the larger question of national identity that remains with us today.

Revolutionary Characters

Revolutionary Characters
Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2006-05-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101201665

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?" and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.

Revolutionary Characters

Revolutionary Characters
Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Penguin Books
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143112082

In 10 essays from previously published articles, the author presents miniature portraits of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and others known as the founding fathers.

Science and the Founding Fathers

Science and the Founding Fathers
Author: I. Bernard Cohen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 378
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393315103

Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with references to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences. For these men science was an integral part of life--including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution.

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
Author: Brion McClanahan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1596985933

The truth revealed--and PC myths shattered--about the Founding Fathers. Tom Brokaw labeled the World War II generation the "Greatest Generation," but he was wrong. That honor belongs to the Founders--the men who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for the cause of liberty and independence, and who established the United States. This was a generation without equal, and it deserves to be rescued from the politically correct textbooks, teachers, and professors who want to dismiss the Founders as a cadre of dead, white, sexist, slave-holding males. Now, a clear-sighted conservative historian, Dr. Brion McClanahan, does just that. In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, he profiles Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and other important Founders; traces the key issues of the day and shows how they dealt with them; and in the process details the Founders' deep faith, commitment to the cause of independence, impeccable character, and visionary political ideals. Even better, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers proves that the Founders had a better understanding of the problems we face today than do our own members of Congress. McClanahan shows that if you want real and relevant insights into the issues of banking, war powers, executive authority, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, states' rights, gun control, judicial activism, trade, and taxes, you'd be better served reading the Founders than you would be watching congressional debates on C-SPAN or reading the New York Times. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers is a vital guide to restoring a sane, sober, Constitutional sense of responsibility to today's public debates.

Sex and the Founding Fathers

Sex and the Founding Fathers
Author: Thomas A. Foster
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-10-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781439911037

Biographers, journalists, and satirists have long used the subject of sex to define the masculine character and political authority of America's Founding Fathers. Tracing these commentaries on the Revolutionary Era's major political figures in Sex and the Founding Fathers, Thomas Foster shows how continual attempts to reveal the true character of these men instead exposes much more about Americans and American culture than about the Founders themselves. Sex and the Founding Fathers examines the remarkable and varied assessments of the intimate lives of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris from their own time to ours. Interpretations can change radically; consider how Jefferson has been variously idealized as a chaste widower, condemned as a child molester, and recently celebrated as a multicultural hero. Foster considers the public and private images of these generally romanticized leaders to show how each generation uses them to reshape and reinforce American civic and national identity.

Founding Fathers

Founding Fathers
Author: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 12
Release: 2007-08-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0470117923

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide information on the Founding Fathers, their actions, and their intentions in writing the U.S. Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch

Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch
Author: Edward Sylvester Ellis
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

In this biography of Thomas Jefferson, readers will discover the life and legacy of one of America's Founding Fathers. From his role as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence to his tenure as the third president of the United States, Jefferson was a visionary leader whose ideas on democracy, republicanism, and individual rights have left an indelible mark on American history. He was a master of many disciplines, from architecture to surveying, mathematics to horticulture, and his keen interest in religion and philosophy made him a prominent figure in the American Philosophical Society.

Founding Brothers

Founding Brothers
Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2003-12-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400077680

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals—Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison—confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. “A splendid book—humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit.” —The New York Times Book Review The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers—re-examined here as Founding Brothers—combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes—Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence—Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history.