Download or read book George Washington and American Constitutionalism written by Glenn A. Phelps and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as the Father of His Country, George Washington is sometimes viewed as a demi-god for what he was and did, rather than for what he thought. In addition to being a popular icon for the forces of American nationalism, he served as commander-in-chief of the victorious Continental Army. That he played a key role in securing the adoption of the Constitution is well known, but few credit him with a political philosophy that actively shaped the constitutional tradition.
Download or read book Founding Friendship written by Stuart Leibiger and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although the friendship between George Washington and James Madison was eclipsed in the early 1790s by the alliances of Madison with Jefferson and Washington with Hamilton, their collaboration remains central to the constitutional revolution that launched the American experiment in republican government. Washington relied heavily on Madison's advice, pen, and legislative skill, while Madison found Washington's prestige indispensable for achieving his goals for the new nation. Together, Stuart Leibiger argues, Washington and Madison struggled to conceptualize a political framework that would respond to the majority without violating minority rights. Stubbornly refusing to sacrifice either of these objectives, they cooperated in helping to build and implement a powerful, extremely republican constitution. Observing Washington and Madison in light of their special relationship, Leibiger argues against a series of misconceptions about the two men. Madison emerges as neither a strong nationalist of the Hamiltonian variety nor a political consolidationist; he did not retreat from nationalism to states' rights in the 1790s, as other historians have charged. Washington, far from being a majestic figurehead, exhibits a strong constitutional vision and firm control of his administration. By examining closely Washington and Madison's correspondence and personal visits, Leibiger shows how a marriage of political convenience between two members of the Chesapeake elite grew into a genuine companionship fostered by historical events and a mutual interest in agriculture and science. The development of their friendship, and eventual estrangement, mirrors in fascinating ways the political development of the early Republic."--Abebooks.com viewed Sept. 25, 2023.
Download or read book George Washington written by David O. Stewart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating and illuminating account of how George Washington became the dominant force in the creation of the United States of America, from award-winning author David O. Stewart “An outstanding biography . . . [George Washington] has a narrative drive such a life deserves.”—The Wall Street Journal Washington's rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-twenties, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks to an outrageous ego. But by his mid-forties, that headstrong, unwise young man had evolved into an unassailable leader chosen as the commander in chief of the fledgling Continental Army. By his mid-fifties, he was unanimously elected the nation's first president. How did Washington emerge from the wilderness to become the central founder of the United States of America? In this remarkable new portrait, award-winning historian David O. Stewart unveils the political education that made Washington a master politician—and America's most essential leader. From Virginia's House of Burgesses, where Washington mastered the craft and timing of a practicing politician, to his management of local government as a justice of the Fairfax County Court to his eventual role in the Second Continental Congress and his grueling generalship in the American Revolution, Washington perfected the art of governing and service, earned trust, and built bridges. The lessons in leadership he absorbed along the way would be invaluable during the early years of the republic as he fought to unify the new nation.
Download or read book George Washington and American Constitutionalism written by Glenn A. Phelps and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 1993-01-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as the Father of His Country, George Washington is viewed as a demigod for what he was and did, not what he thought. In addition to being a popular icon for the forces of American nationalism, he served as commander-in-chief of the victorious Continental Army. That he played a key role in securing the adoption of the Constitution is well known, but few credit him with a political philosophy that actively shaped the constitutional tradition. In this revisionist study, Glenn Phelps argues that Washington's political thought influenced the principles informing the federal government then and now. Disinclined to enter the debates by which the framers hammered out a consensus, Washington instead sought to promote his way of thinking through private correspondence, and the example of his public life. From these sources Phelps draws out his political ideas and demonstrates that Washington developed a coherent and consistent view of a republican government on a continental scale long before Madison, Hamilton, and other nationalists-a view grounded in classically conservative republicanism and continentally-minded commercialism. That he was only partially successful in building the constitutional system that he intended does not undercut his theoretical contribution. Even his failures affected the way our constitutional tradition developed. Phelps examines Washington's political ideas not as they were perceived by his contemporaries but in his own words, that is, he shows what Washington believed, not what others thought he believed. He shows how Washington's political values remained consistent over time, regardless of who his counselors or "ghost writers" were. Using letters Washington wrote to friends and family-written free from the constraints of public politics-Phelps reveals "a man with a passionate commitment to a fully developed idea of a constitutional republic on a continental scale." In recent years scholarship about Washington has seemed to focus on mythmaking. For readers interested in the founding period, the framing of what Hamilton called the "frail fabric," and constitutionalism, Phelps explores the substance behind the myth.
Download or read book American Constitutionalism Heard Round the World 1776 1989 written by George Athan Billias and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-12 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2010 Book Award from the New England Historical Association American constitutionalism represents this country’s greatest gift to human freedom, yet its story remains largely untold. For over two hundred years, its ideals, ideas, and institutions influenced different peoples in different lands at different times. American constitutionalism and the revolutionary republican documents on which it is based affected countless countries by helping them develop their own constitutional democracies. Western constitutionalism—of which America was a part along with Britain and France—reached a major turning point in global history in 1989, when the forces of democracy exceeded the forces of autocracy for the first time. Historian George Athan Billias traces the spread of American constitutionalism—from Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean region, to Asia and Africa—beginning chronologically with the American Revolution and the fateful "shot heard round the world" and ending with the conclusion of the Cold War in 1989. The American model contributed significantly by spearheading the drive to greater democracy throughout the Western world, and Billias’s landmark study tells a story that will change the way readers view the important role American constitutionalism played during this era.
Download or read book The Indian World of George Washington written by Colin Gordon Calloway and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Indian World of George Washington offers a fresh portrait of the most revered American and the Native Americans whose story has been only partially told.
Download or read book The Point of It All written by Charles Krauthammer and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful collection of the influential columnist’s most important works—featuring rare speeches, a major essay about today’s populist movements and the future of global democracy, and a new preface by the author’s son, Daniel Krauthammer “Charles will be remembered as one of the greatest public intellects of his generation.”—John McCain In his decades of work as America’s preeminent political commentator, whether writing about statecraft and foreign policy or reflecting on more esoteric topics such as baseball, spaceflight and medical ethics, Charles Krauthammer elevated the opinion column to a form of art. This collection features the columns, speeches and unpublished writings that showcase the best of his original thought and his last, enduring words on the state of American politics, the nature of liberal democracy and the course of world history. The book also includes a deeply personal section offering insight into Krauthammer’s beliefs about what mattered most to him: friendship, family and the principles he lived by. The Point of It All is a timely demonstration of what made Charles Krauthammer the most celebrated American columnist and political thinker of his generation, a revealing look at the man behind the words and a lasting testament to his belief that anyone with an open and honest mind can grapple deeply with the most urgent questions in politics and in life.
Download or read book Power and Liberty written by Gordon S. Wood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of early America's most eminent historians, this book masterfully discusses the debates over constitutionalism that took place in the Revolutionary era.
Download or read book The Presidents and the Constitution written by Ken Gormley and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shines new light on America's brilliant constitutional and presidential history, from George Washington to Barack Obama. In this sweepingly ambitious volume, the nation’s foremost experts on the American presidency and the U.S. Constitution join together to tell the intertwined stories of how each American president has confronted and shaped the Constitution. Each occupant of the office—the first president to the forty-fourth—has contributed to the story of the Constitution through the decisions he made and the actions he took as the nation’s chief executive. By examining presidential history through the lens of constitutional conflicts and challenges, The Presidents and the Constitution offers a fresh perspective on how the Constitution has evolved in the hands of individual presidents. It delves into key moments in American history, from Washington’s early battles with Congress to the advent of the national security presidency under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to reveal the dramatic historical forces that drove these presidents to action. Historians and legal experts, including Richard Ellis, Gary Hart, Stanley Kutler and Kenneth Starr, bring the Constitution to life, and show how the awesome powers of the American presidency have been shapes by the men who were granted them. The book brings to the fore the overarching constitutional themes that span this country’s history and ties together presidencies in a way never before accomplished.
Download or read book The First Congress written by Fergus M. Bordewich and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The little known story of perhaps the most productive Congress in US history, the First Federal Congress of 1789-1791. The First Congress was the most important in US history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed--as many at the time feared it would--it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today. The Constitution was a broad set of principles. It was left to the members of the First Congress and President George Washington to create the machinery that would make the government work. Fortunately, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and others less well known today, rose to the occasion. During two years of often fierce political struggle, they passed the first ten amendments to the Constitution; they resolved bitter regional rivalries to choose the site of the new national capital; they set in place the procedure for admitting new states to the union; and much more. But the First Congress also confronted some issues that remain to this day: the conflict between states' rights and the powers of national government; the proper balance between legislative and executive power; the respective roles of the federal and state judiciaries; and funding the central government. Other issues, such as slavery, would fester for decades before being resolved. The First Congress tells the dramatic story of the two remarkable years when Washington, Madison, and their dedicated colleagues struggled to successfully create our government, an achievement that has lasted to the present day."--Publisher website.
Download or read book First Entrepreneur written by Edward G. Lengel and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States was conceived in business, founded on business, and operated as a business -- all because of the entrepreneurial mind of the greatest American businessman of any generation: George Washington. Using Washington's extensive but often overlooked financial papers, Edward G. Lengel chronicles the fascinating and inspiring story of how this self-educated man built the Mount Vernon estate into a vast multilayered enterprise and prudently managed meager resources to win the war of independence. Later, as president, he helped establish the national economy on a solid footing and favorably positioned the nation for the Industrial Revolution. Washington's steadfast commitment to the core economic principles of probity, transparency, careful management, and calculated boldness are timeless lessons that should inspire and instruct investors even today. First Entrepreneur will transform how ordinary Americans think about George Washington and how his success in commercial enterprise influenced and guided the emerging nation.
Download or read book The Cabinet written by Lindsay M. Chervinsky and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Excellence in American History Book Award Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize “Cogent, lucid, and concise...An indispensable guide to the creation of the cabinet...Groundbreaking...we can now have a much greater appreciation of this essential American institution, one of the major legacies of George Washington’s enlightened statecraft.” —Ron Chernow 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. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrection, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help distinctly lacking—he decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to for guidance. Authoritative and compulsively readable, The Cabinet reveals the far-reaching consequences of this decision. To Washington’s dismay, the tensions between Hamilton and Jefferson sharpened partisan divides, contributing to the development of the first party system. As he faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body, greatly expanding the role of the executive branch and indelibly transforming the presidency. “Important and illuminating...an original angle of vision on the foundations and development of something we all take for granted.” —Jon Meacham “Fantastic...A compelling story.” —New Criterion “Helps us understand pivotal moments in the 1790s and the creation of an independent, effective executive.” —Wall Street Journal
Download or read book The Madisonian Constitution written by George Thomas and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-06-18 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book George Washington Reconsidered written by Don Higginbotham and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Washington, heroic general of the Revolution, master of Mount Vernon, and first president of the United States, remains the most enigmatic figure of the founding generation, with historians and the public at large still arguing over the strengths of his character and the nature of his intellectual and political contributions to the early republic. Representing the finest recent scholarship on Washington, these thirteen essays by the leading scholars in the field strike a balance between Washington's personal life and character and his public life as a soldier and political figure. Editor Don Higginbotham provides an introduction about Washington and his treatment by historians, and an afterword devoted to how the American people have viewed Washington, including the 1999 commemorations of the bicentennial of his death. With three essays written specifically for this volume, George Washington Reconsidered is the first collection of its kind to be published in over thirty years.
Download or read book America s Constitution written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius. Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president. From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans. We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election. Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.
Download or read book The Words That Made Us written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the American Constitution's formative decades from a preeminent legal scholar When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. Should the nation's borders be expanded? Should America allow slavery to spread westward? What rights should Indian nations hold? What was the proper role of the judicial branch? In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document's origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America's Constitution today.
Download or read book Washington s End written by Jonathan Horn and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular historian and former White House speechwriter Jonathan Horn “provides a captivating and enlightening look at George Washington’s post-presidential life and the politically divided country that was part of his legacy” (New York Journal of Books). Beginning where most biographies of George Washington leave off, Washington’s End opens with the first president exiting office after eight years and entering what would become the most bewildering stage of his life. Embittered by partisan criticism and eager to return to his farm, Washington assumed a role for which there was no precedent at a time when the kings across the ocean yielded their crowns only upon losing their heads. In a different sense, Washington would lose his head, too. In this riveting read, bestselling author Jonathan Horn reveals that the quest to surrender power proved more difficult than Washington imagined and brought his life to an end he never expected. The statesman who had staked his legacy on withdrawing from public life would feud with his successors and find himself drawn back into military command. The patriarch who had dedicated his life to uniting his country would leave his name to a new capital city destined to become synonymous with political divisions. A “movable feast of a book” (Jay Winik, New York Times bestselling author of 1944), immaculately researched, and powerfully told through the eyes not only of Washington but also of his family members, friends, and foes, Washington’s End is “an outstanding biographical work on one of America’s most prominent leaders (Library Journal).
