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Founding Fathers In Joseph Ellis's Founding Brothers

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Brothers to each other and Fathers to the nation, James Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison led the United States to independence over a series of revolutionary events. Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers successfully brings to life the issues and personalities of this period in time and is able to characterize these figures beyond their distinguished names, but as characters in a dramatic and remarkable history. Ellis succinctly analyzes six major events in the late 18th century: the Burr-Hamilton duel, the Compromise of 1790, the issue of slavery, Washington’s Farewell Address, the Adams Administration, and the friendship between Adams and Madison. He is able to vividly …show more content…
Ellis romanticised the relationship between admired the duo and left me in a sad awe as he discussed their tumultuous timeline. Skewing from politics, Ellis dedicated the last chapter to Adams’s and Madison’s reconciliation after their fight against presidency left their relationship in shambles. I had always viewed the Founding Fathers as hardened men who stood at the height of virility for what they stood for, however, Ellis shed new light on the two men -as well as the rest of the Founding Fathers- and told a story of their reunion through a series of 158 emotional and insightful letters after their retirement. Ellis connected Adam’s writings to the Mad Hatter as “Adams and Rush in Wonderland” (215) in which Adams and his trusted confidant Benjamin Rush shared therapeutic, poetically-written letters, drawing a whimsical tone to the chapter and further evoking a less masculine side of John Adams. I was extremely impressed by Ellis’s ability to humanize these historical figures and convey the significance of friendships among the Founding Fathers and how those relationships eventually followed each of them into their

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