Download or read book Revolution in America written by Don Higginbotham and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our nation has produced comparatively few statesmen since the eighteenth century--only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt seem to clearly qualify--whereas the American Revolution elevated several of its key players to a status of the first political order. Even the shortest list must include Franklin, Hamilton, and the first four presidents. The opening essays in Don Higginbotham's new collection look at the epochal achievements of the Revolutionary era through the perspectives of war, leadership, and state formation. Higginbotham examines how the blend of key personages influenced the creation of a federal system and led to the establishment of a new kind of militia and of West Point, a military academy distinctly different from its counterparts in Europe. The collection also provides a fascinating view into the character of George Washington through an essay examining his relationships with women. The concluding essays turn to the post-Revolutionary era to examine how the North and South, despite profound and persistent bonds, began to grow apart. Higginbotham traces the deepening sectional crisis within the context of the election of Lincoln, and he ends his book with the approach of a second revolution--that of the Confederacy. All of the essays demonstrate Higginbotham's belief that history is not shaped simply by vast, impersonal forces but that, on the contrary, significant and lasting change is to a large extent brought about by the interaction and decisions of individuals. Our unique and remarkable history is a reflection of remarkable people.

Download or read book Inventing a Nation written by Gore Vidal and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestseller offers “an unblinking view of our national heroes by one who cherishes them, warts and all” (New York Review of Books). In Inventing a Nation, National Book Award winner Gore Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal’s splendid prose, in ways we have not up to now—their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate. The author of Burr and Lincoln, one of the master stylists of American literature and most acute observers of American life, turns his immense literary and historiographic talent to a portrait of these formidable men

Download or read book The Cabinet written by Lindsay M. Chervinsky and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government? On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions. Lindsay M. Chervinsky reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

Download or read book The Idea of a Party System written by Richard Hofstadter and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume traces the historical processes in thought by which American political leaders slowly edged away from their complete philosophical rejection of a party and hesitantly began to embrace a party system. The author's analysis of the idea of party and the development of legitimate opposition offers fresh insights into the political crisis of 1797-1801, on the thought of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, and other leading figures, and on the beginnings of modern democratic politics.

Download or read book The Great Divide written by Thomas Fleming and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look at the nation’s formative years through the lens of the clash between Washington and Jefferson.

Download or read book Adams vs Jefferson written by John Ferling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is the gripping account of a turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation should be governed. The Federalists, led by Adams, were conservatives who favored a strong central government. The Republicans, led by Jefferson, were more egalitarian and believed that the Federalists had betrayed the Revolution of 1776 and were backsliding toward monarchy. The campaign itself was a barroom brawl every bit as ruthless as any modern contest, with mud-slinging, scare tactics, and backstabbing. The low point came when Alexander Hamilton printed a devastating attack on Adams, the head of his own party, in "fifty-four pages of unremitting vilification." The stalemate in the Electoral College dragged on through dozens of ballots. Tensions ran so high that the Republicans threatened civil war if the Federalists denied Jefferson the presidency. Finally a secret deal that changed a single vote gave Jefferson the White House. A devastated Adams left Washington before dawn on Inauguration Day, too embittered even to shake his rival's hand. With magisterial command, Ferling brings to life both the outsize personalities and the hotly contested political questions at stake. He shows not just why this moment was a milestone in U.S. history, but how strongly the issues--and the passions--of 1800 resonate with our own time.

Download or read book Washington Vs Jefferson written by Moses Moorhead Granger and published by Boston ; New York : Houghton, Mifflin. This book was released on 1898 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jefferson and Hamilton written by John Ferling and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of America's foremost historians brilliantly brings to life the fierce struggle - both public and, ultimately, bitterly personal - between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton - two rivals whose opposing visions of what the United States should be continue to shape our country to this day.

Download or read book The Great Virginia Triumvirate written by John P. Kaminski and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-01-22 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three remarkable Virginians stand out in their service to the new nation: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Kaminski presents a series of biographical portraits that brings these three men remarkably to life for the modern reader.

Download or read book Washington s Farewell Address to the People of the United States 1796 written by George Washington and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Setting the World Ablaze written by John E. Ferling and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Setting the World Ablaze tells the story of the American Revolution and of three Founders who played crucial roles in winning the War of Independence and creating a new nation: George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. A leading historian of the Revolutionary era, Ferling draws upon an unsurpassed command of the primary sources and a talent for swiftly moving narrative to give us intimate views of each of these men. He provides both an overarching historical picture of the era and a gripping sense of how these conservative men--successful members of the colonial elite--were transformed into radical revolutionaries.

Download or read book The Lives of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson written by Stephen Simpson and published by . This book was released on 1833 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Washington Vs Jefferson written by Moses Moorhead Granger and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Revolutionary Friendship written by Francis D. Cogliano and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full account of the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, countering the legend of their enmity while drawing vital historical lessons from the differences that arose between them. Martha Washington’s worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson’s awkward visit to pay his respects subsequently. Indeed, by the time George Washington had died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to teach us. In constitutional design, for instance: Whereas Washington believed in the rule of traditional elites like the Virginia gentry, Jefferson preferred what we would call a meritocratic approach, by which elites would be elected on the basis of education and skills. And while Washington emphasized a need for strong central government, Jefferson favored diffusion of power across the states. Still, as Francis Cogliano argues, common convictions equally defined their relationship: a passion for American independence and republican government, as well as a commitment to westward expansion and the power of commerce. They also both evolved a skeptical view of slavery, eventually growing to question the institution, even as they took only limited steps to abolish it. What remains fascinating is that the differences between the two statesmen mirrored key political fissures of the early United States, as the unity of revolutionary zeal gave way to competing visions for the new nation. A Revolutionary Friendship brilliantly captures the dramatic, challenging, and poignant reality that there was no single founding ideal—only compromise between friends and sometime rivals.

Download or read book Founders Son written by Richard Brookhiser and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abraham Lincoln grew up in the long shadow of the Founding Fathers. Seeking an intellectual and emotional replacement for his own taciturn father, Lincoln turned to the great men of the founding—Washington, Paine, Jefferson—and their great documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution—for knowledge, guidance, inspiration, and purpose. Out of the power vacuum created by their passing, Lincoln emerged from among his peers as the true inheritor of the Founders’ mantle, bringing their vision to bear on the Civil War and the question of slavery. In Founders’ Son, celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders. They were rhetorical and political touchstones, the basis of his interest in politics, and the lodestars guiding him as he navigated first Illinois politics and then the national scene. But their legacy with not sufficient. As the Civil War lengthened and the casualties mounted Lincoln wrestled with one more paternal figure—God the Father—to explain to himself, and to the nation, why ending slavery had come at such a terrible price. Bridging the rich and tumultuous period from the founding of the United States to the Civil War, Founders’ Son is unlike any Lincoln biography to date. Penetrating in its insight, elegant in its prose, and gripping in its vivid recreation of Lincoln’s roving mind at work, this book allows us to think anew about the first hundred years of American history, and shows how we can, like Lincoln, apply the legacy of the Founding Fathers to our times.

Download or read book Jefferson s White House written by James B. Conroy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the first president to occupy the White House for an entire term, Thomas Jefferson shaped the president’s residence, literally and figuratively, more than any of its other occupants. Remarkably enough, however, though many books have immortalized Jefferson’s Monticello, none has been devoted to the vibrant look, feel, and energy of his still more famous and consequential home from 1801 to 1809. In Monticello on the Potomac, James B. Conroy, author of the award-winning Lincoln’s White House offers a vivid, highly readable account of how life was lived in Jefferson’s White House and the young nation’s rustic capital.

Download or read book American Sphinx written by Joseph J. Ellis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1998-11-19 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER Following Thomas Jefferson from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to his retirement in Monticello, Joseph J. Ellis unravels the contradictions of the Jeffersonian character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying mescegenation while maintaing an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemmings; the enemy of government power who exercisdd it audaciously as president; the visionarty who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature. American Sphinx is a marvel of scholarship, a delight to read, and an essential gloss on the Jeffersonian legacy.