Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph Ellis, Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Ellis explores many events and problems faced by the Founding Fathers as the United States seeks a new form of government. Ellis quotes Tom Paine, an English-born political philosopher, by saying “claimed that it was simply a matter of common sense that an island could not rule a continent”(Ellis, 3). Principles were at stake while the country was at a constant state of war with other countries, including the mother country England. Ellis paints many mental pictures of the American revolutionaries and their troubled hardships while maintaining balanced decisions on quite decisive events that were later to be shaping the ideas of

A web article concludes that ‘In 1619, the dutch introduced the first captured Africans to America, planting the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately divide the nation’(History.com). Ellis discusses the chapter’s name ‘Silence’ that held a stand still moment for the government over the right of slaves and the slavery system. Petitions made by quakers were called to end the nightmarish African slave trade, but many still opposed. Ellis also gives a history outlook by utilizing both foresight and hindsight to see both the problems within Congress and the problems within the people. Madison wanted ‘Silence’ by ensuring that no slavery system can be examined by the federal system and soon after established the states right to buy and sell African slaves. Due to Madison’s victory , slavery was not able to be undone until 1862, where future President Abraham Lincoln announced an Emancipation

While the government faces future success, chapter six focuses on the letters that were written by Jefferson and Adams describing the costs of the war for independence with details for working out problems and to defining themselves. Ellis captures this moment with the strong distinction between both hindsight and foresight and detailing how Jefferson was seeking clarity and underlying meanings, and Adams celebrated in a lively way of the messiness in actual reality. Ellis concludes Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by ending on a friendship that will last a lifetime and giving an experience to the reader about hardships pursued, federal misalignment, and dreams achieved during a major part of American history and the