Tag Archives: authors: joseph j. ellis

Joseph J. Ellis (Part II)

history, non-fiction November 24, 2017 Leave a comment

So, as the conclusion to Part I, here is Part II! (I know, I know. Lame.)

I listened to two other books by Joseph J. Ellis this year.

The first was Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence. It examined the middle of 1776 (from May to October, so a little more than the actual summer), probably the most consequential 6 month period in the creation of the United States, and wove narratives of newly minted Americans George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, as well as those of British Admiral Lord Richard Howe and General William Howe, into a compelling, day to day political and military narrative of the period.

The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were so short of money and supplies that they had to make a lot of decisions on the fly. The book looks at the role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet, and how it fueled the revolutionary fire. It explained the rules of honor in the 18th century, which explained why Washington was so willing to engage the British when he really had no chance, and how the British military’s arrogance contributed to their eventual loss of the war. They could have crushed the American Revolution in its infancy, but they just didn’t take it seriously enough to destroy the Continental Army once and for all.

It was a very good book, although a lot of it I already knew. What was refreshing, though, was the British perspective. A lot of American history books gloss over, or entirely eliminate, what happened on the British side of the Revolutionary War. (I can only imagine that in Britain they go over it, but who knows?) It was nice to get some of that here.

The last book in this vein I listened to this year was The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789. It dove into the creation of the federal government and the adoption of the Constitution. The sheer amount of work it took Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay to sell the Constitution and centralized federal government to an American populace disinclined to allow the growth of any centralized national government (understandably, as the Revolutionary War came at great cost) is nothing short of political brilliance and skillful manipulation on a scale I’m not sure we’ll ever see again.

People don’t seem entirely aware that the colonies banded together to fight the common threat of Great Britain and then planned to mostly go their separate ways (for more about that, read this book). This presented a series of problems that made the country completely ineffective at, basically, being a country.

Hamilton and Madison get a majority of the credit for the Constitution, and they deserve the lion’s share: they wrote the majority of what we now know as the Federalist Papers. Hamilton had to manipulate Washington to some extent, as he was very conscious of his legacy. Washington retired from public life after the Revolution, and only came back into service when he felt he had no choice. Washington threw his support behind the Constitution and national government when he realized all he fought for during the war would be lost if the country fell apart, and he knew going in that he’d have to serve as first President, even if he didn’t really want to.  Madison had to out argue Patrick Henry (arguably our greatest orator) for support of the Constitution (Henry was staunchly against a stronger government) in front of the Virginia legislature – no small feat. John Jay, in addition to contributing to the Federalist Papers, was a cerebral diplomat but also wielded a lot of influence with people in the position to influence. He was a respected lawyer, and supported a stronger government because as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1784-1789, he lacked the authority needed to make treaties under the Articles of Confederation.

The book gets into some other issues, but it also shines a light on men who don’t get much attention when it comes to the creation of the country, most notably Gouverneur Morris, who wrote a lot of the Constitution, including the all important preamble, and Robert Morris (no relation), who more or less financed a huge portion of the Revolutionary War out of his personal fortune, and who, along with Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, built the American financial system from scratch. If I remember correctly he, more or less, created the concept of “credit.”

Robert Morris was probably my favorite discovery in this book. I had heard of him but not that much about him, and the way Ellis explained his individual role (the others too, but Morris especially) really hammered home how much things have changed. He financed the war because basically he felt it was his duty. That old JFK quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you” etc… that WAS Morris.

In the same vein, I didn’t fully realize or understand the role honor played in the creation of the Constitution. These people didn’t want to be remembered as the people who improbably won a war but who failed at creating a country afterwards. They knew they were going to remembered, and they worked to create how they were going to be remembered.

It was a really solid, interesting look at how the United States became the United States. I highly recommend it, especially if you know the basics but you’re a little fuzzy on the time period. It’s illuminating.

Image result for revolutionary summer

 

Joseph J. Ellis (Part I)

history, non-fiction November 9, 2017 1 Comment

I’m not sure where my fascination with the founding of the United States comes from. I think it has something to do with being very familiar with the musical ‘1776’ from the time I was a very small kid, but honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve just always been interested in it, and by Thomas Jefferson especially, but that interest has expanded way past Jefferson. I’m a pretty voracious consumer of knowledge on the founding of my country these days.

Joseph J. Ellis has written a large number of books on the creation of the United States. I haven’t read all of them or read them in any order, but the first one I read was His Excellency, George Washington back in 2006. It gave me a new appreciation of Washington. This was during college. I also followed that up in college with Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.

For some reason I really took to Ellis. I don’t know what it was about his writing that I enjoyed. I still can’t quite explain it. One of my college roommates found his writing very dull, but I liked it as I felt it was a balanced look at the founding. Nobody was deified but credit was given where it was due, too. And then I took a break from Ellis and his writing.

But as with all things I love, I  returned to it. I listened to three books by Ellis this earlier this year. They were:

01. American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic
02. Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence
03. The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783 – 1789

American Creation dealt with issues from the revolutionary period through Jefferson’s presidency, and examines these six things, some of which are both great successes and incredible failures.

The first chapter examined the Declaration of Independence, which had revolutionary implications that the founders didn’t even realize; they saw the document as a letter to Britain and the world about why they were about to commit treason, and hopefully convince the rest of the world that it wasn’t really treason and get some aid, both financial and military. But when we talk about the Declaration of Independence today, which parts do we talk about? Not the charges listed against King George III about why the colonists revolted. We talk about what Ellis refers to as “the American promise.” Without ever meaning to, Thomas Jefferson wrote into our founding document the basis of all American political and social reform:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

This was my favorite chapter.

The second chapter examined Washington’s near superhuman achievement in keeping the Continental Army together in the winter at Valley Forge, PA. Supplies were short, and the ongoing strain changed Washington’s strategy. Over that winter, the strategy became to control the American countryside, rather than an all out decisive battle with the British. This was a hard decision for him, because rules of honor and conduct at the time demanded a decisive battle.

The third chapter dealt with James Madison’s efforts to create a strong federal government at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. While he wasn’t able to create a federal government that could veto state laws, the Constitution allowed for argument, which was essentially the solution. Neither the federal nor the state government was ever always right.

Chapter four was about Washington failing to create a successful, lasting treaty with the Native Americans, particularly in the southeastern United States – South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (although, IIRC, Florida wasn’t actually part of the country at that time).  Washington did desperately want to honor the treaties he signed and, unlike many of his contemporaries, admired and even liked, many Native Americans. But he was unable to honor his treaties, mostly due to the sheer size of the country and the small, almost non-existent federal military at the time. Washington considered it one of his biggest failures.

Chapter five looked at Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s creation of party politics. Knowing what we know now, this was possibly a disservice to the country. But anyway. Alexander Hamilton was basically Washington’s protege and favorite son, and Hamilton had pretty grand ideas about national economics, which Jefferson and Madison saw as a threat to liberty…particularly the liberty of their fellow plantation owning Virginian aristocratic friends. So Jefferson claimed to disparage party politics but worked to actively undermine the Washington administration from within. This really wasn’t a flattering look at Jefferson. I knew he disagreed with Hamilton but didn’t realize the efforts he made to make him and Washington look bad.

The final chapter looked at the Louisiana Purchase, and Jefferson again. In addition to the mental gymnastics Jefferson had to do to justify the federal power he exercised as chief executive while claiming to hate the power of the chief executive, the book looks at his achievement of making the purchase but also his failure to prevent slavery in the new territory. Ellis even argues that Jefferson’s failure here set the country on the path to Civil War, and so really, the tragedy outweighed the triumph.

I had intended to write this in one post, but as it’s nearly a thousand words, I’m going to cut this off here and continue in a second post on this subject.