I recently re-read Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis. It is not a large book but (about 248 pages in the paperback excluding notes) but, I am reading on the train so I read in short intervals and quite often there are distractions.

Ellis tells several stories about the founders of the United States. Despite his modesty in the Preface, he does quite a remarkable job of making these Revolutionaries come alive in the stories. He starts with the well known story of the Hamilton-Burr duel which sets the stage for the rest and gets the unpleasantness out of the way. And he concludes with the reconciliation of two old friends who became bitter enemies in the rough and tumble politics of the early years of the republic (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson). In between are a few more stories about the Revolutionary Generation.

All the stories contribute to understanding of the dynamics among these revolutionaries. All eventually agreed that we needed to separate from England but they disagreed about how to proceed in founding a new country after we won our freedom. The Constitution did not settle the argument but just provides an orderly framework to allow the argument to continue. The document was a series of compromises and a bit of ambiguity in many cases.And it has continued for over 200 years.

The biggest of the compromises was about the clear inconsistency of allowing slavery in a nation whose founding is based on human rights. A good number of the founders saw the inconsistency and the wrong of it but it was probably impossible to get others who were both culturally and economically dependent on slavery to agree. The reached a compromise which only delayed the day of reckoning and results in civil war. During the intervening years the institution of slavery only increased but our country also became stronger. Ellis does a very good job in getting the reader to understand how we can see the inevitable in hindsight but that what we see as inevitable was not at all obvious to the revolutionaries and that there course may well have been the best that could be done given the fragile nature of our union in their time.

After I finished reading Founding Brothers, I thought it a good idea to read Ellis’s next book, American Creation. In many ways it was a continuation of his earlier work. Founding Brothers told the story of the Revolutionary era via stories about several of the founders; and American Creation is more chronological in approach and focuses largely on the 20 years after these revolutionaries have won freedom from Great Britain. That said, the 2 books do overlap in many ways (both characters and time and especially in some overarching themes) but the emphasis is a bit different.

Ellis neither puts the founders on pedestals nor treats them as unsympathetic dead white men as some works or views of history tend to do. He does not gloss over that facts that they were white and the men in that time had the power so all the main actors were men. (And of course they are dead now.) But importantly they were men of their time and while they were exceptional they were also human, complicated, and shared a certain lack of perfection with all of us.

All of the founders saw the need to set up our own government but they disagreed on what a federal government should look like and how it would related to the states. The first attempt (The Articles of Confederation) failed to give enough power to the federal government for the national government to remain viable. A second attempt resulted in the Constitution. There were failures, ambiguities, and many compromises but Ellis tells this story much better that I could.

Neither of these books is very large (less than 300 pages in each paperback) and I think most Americans would profit by reading both. Although I do not remember the books addressing this point, they put today’s political unpleasantness in perspective. But if I had to pick one, I would suggest the second. It is especially important because we constantly hear various pundits and politicians passing judgment on whether or not specific actions by the federal government are Constitutional. So if you are the type who likes to have an informed opinion on these matters, read one or both of these books.