Founding Brothers (2000) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Thomas Jefferson: Add a description of this character.
• John Adams
• Alexander Hamilton
• Aaron Burr
• Abigail Adams Smith
• Benjamin Franklin
• James Jackson
• Nathaniel Pendleton
• John Jay
• John Quincy Adams
• James Madison
• Van Ness
• Benjamin Rush
• Monroe
• Gerry
• George Iii
• Randolph
• Mason
• Callender
• Pinckney
• Benedict Arnold
• William Loughton Smith
• Davila

Quotes edit see section history

• “If that means the United States is founded on a contradiction, then so be it”

• “In its most familiar form, dominant in the nineteenth century, the tension assumes a constitutional appearance as a conflict between state and federal sovereignty”

• “Lincoln once said that America was founded on a proposition that was written by Jefferson in 1776”

• “The revolutionary generation found a way to contain the explosive energies of the debate in the form of an ongoing argument or dialogue that was eventually institutionalized and rendered safe by the creation of political parties”

• “With that one bloody exception, we have been living with it successfully for over two hundred years”

• “With the American Revolution, as with all revolutions, different factions came together in common cause to overthrow the reigning regime, then discovered in the aftermath of their triumph that they had fundamentally different and politically incompatible notions of what they intended”

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• the revolutionary generation found a way to contain the explosive energies of the debate in the form of an ongoing argument or dialogue that was eventually institutionalized and rendered safe by the creation of political parties.

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• The first founding declared American independence; the second, American nationhood.

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• By selecting the Potomac location, the Congress had implicitly decided to separate the political and financial capitals of the United States.

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• Jefferson had also shared with Madison his intriguingly utopian suggestion that each generation was sovereign, so that the laws made for one generation should expire after about twenty years.

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• The term American, like the term democrat, began as an epithet, the former referring to an inferior, provincial creature, the latter to one who panders to the crude and mindless whims of the masses.

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• Lincoln once said that America was founded on a proposition that was written by Jefferson in 1776. We are really founded on an argument about what that proposition means.

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• When money was spread out, it was only money. When concentrated, it was capital.

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• Whereas Hamilton’s central charge against Jefferson was that he was a utopian visionary with a misguided set of political principles, his core criticism of Burr was that he was wholly devoid of any principles at all.

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• Like Voltaire, Jefferson longed for the day when the last king would be strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

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• “I am not a Federalist,” he declared in 1789, “because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever.… If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Boston
• Philadelphia
• Georgia
• Maryland
• London
• Massachusetts: Boston
• Mississippi
• New Jersey: Weehawken and other cities
• New York
• Pennsylvania: Philadelphia
• South Carolina
• Virginia
• Mount Vernon: George Washington's estate in Virginia.
• Monticello: Thomas Jefferson's estate in Virginia.
• Paris
• Canada

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Joseph J. Ellis (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Pulitzer Prize (2001: History)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: E 302.5 .E451 2000
• Dewey: 973.40922

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Americas › United States › Revolution & Founding
• Books › Nonfiction › Politics › History & Theory
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Historical