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06d4003 quoting someone else] the American constitution is a document designed by geniuses to be eventually interpreted by idiots interpretation Joseph J. Ellis
6ce4324 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. american-history american-revolution history jefferson lincoln nationalism Joseph J. Ellis
3bcddb4 Adams had gone to Harvard, Jefferson to William and Mary. Washington had gone to war. maturation military Joseph J. Ellis
84c52e4 Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli. american-revolution thomas-jefferson Joseph J. Ellis
b32f7f1 If you knew how the journey was going to end, you could afford to be patient along the path. faith patients perspective Joseph J. Ellis
1afa063 The Constitution was intended less to resolve arguments than to make argument itself the solution. debate leadership Joseph J. Ellis
c37844d In Jefferson's mind great historical leaps forward were almost always the product of a purging, which freed societies from the accumulated debris of the past and thereby allowed the previously obstructed natural forces to flow forward into the future. Simplicity and austerity, not equality or individualism, were the messages of his inaugural march. It was a minimalist statement about a purging of excess and a recovery of essence. thomas-jefferson Joseph J. Ellis
1984ddf God was not in the details for Jefferson; he was in the sky and stars. thomas-jefferson Joseph J. Ellis
d4f2e87 James Jackson actually made menacing faces at the Quakers in the gallery, calling them outright lunatics, then launched into a tirade so emotional and incoherent that reporters in the audience had difficulty recording his words. Joseph J. Ellis
8895711 The first symptom of the trouble appeared when Madison studied Hamilton's proposal for the funding of the domestic debt. On the one hand, Hamilton's recommendation looked straightforward: All citizens who owned government securities should be reimbursed at par--that is, the full value of the government's original promise. But many original holders of the securities, mainly veterans of the American Revolution who had received them as pay for.. Joseph J. Ellis
0bed93a For Madison, on the other hand, "a Public Debt is a Public curse," and "in a Representative Government greater than in any other."26" Joseph J. Ellis
a4190fe 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." Joseph J. Ellis
09b0d80 Like the classic it has become, the Farewell Address has demonstrated the capacity to assume different shapes in different eras, to change color, if you will, in varying shades of light. interpretation Joseph J. Ellis
572a446 In a very real sense, we are complicitous in their achievement, since we are the audience for which they were performing; knowing we would be watching helped to keep them on their best behavior. history witnessing Joseph J. Ellis
0cea967 permitting the continuance and expansion of slavery as the price to pay for nationhood. This decision meant that tragedy was also built into the American founding, and the only question we can ask is whether it was a Greek tragedy, meaning inevitable and unavoidable, or a Shakespearean tragedy, meaning that it could have gone the other way, and the failure was a function of the racial prejudices the founders harbored in their heads and hear.. Joseph J. Ellis
57d1bb1 It took him (Washington) more than a year to gain control over his own aggressive instincts. discipline maturation self-control Joseph J. Ellis
ad36bb0 In addition, the most reliable and recent studies of African tribal culture demonstrated that slavery was a long-standing custom among the Africans themselves, so enslaved Africans in America were simply experiencing a condition here that they would otherwise experience, probably in more oppressive fashion, in their mother country. Joseph J. Ellis
f839521 The old adage applied: if God were in the details, Colonel Washington would have been there to greet him upon arrival. Joseph J. Ellis
3ee5140 Antislavery idealists might prefer to live in some better world, which like all such places was too good to be true. The American nation in 1790, however, was a real world, laden with legacies like slavery, and therefore too true to be good. slavery Joseph J. Ellis
e036a74 in time to come be shaped by the human mind." Asked" -- Joseph J. Ellis
53230d3 Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theater of action." In so doing, he became th.. Joseph J. Ellis
3530452 But if insecurity was the primal source of Hamilton's incredibly energy, one would have to conclude that providence had conspired to produce at the most opportune moment perhaps the most creative liability in American history. insecurity Joseph J. Ellis
2379409 All well and good, but for our purposes these otherwise-valuable insights are mere subplots almost designed to carry us down side trails while blithely humming a tune about the rough equivalence of forests and trees. Joseph J. Ellis
6121692 The strategic center of the rebellion was not a place - not New York, Philadelphia, not the Hudson corridor - but the Continental Army itself. military servant-leadership Joseph J. Ellis
d331082 In fact, the past is not history, but a much vaster region of the dead, gone, unknowable, or forgotten. History is what we choose to remember, and we have no alternative but to do our choosing now. founding-fathers patriotism Joseph J. Ellis
ebd640a Contemporaries of Alexander Hamilton noticed "his conspicuous sense of self-possession, his unique combination of serenity and energy." leadership self-control the-arithmetic Joseph J. Ellis
89d75a6 Washington not only fit the bill physically, he was also almost perfect psychologically, so comfortable with his superiority that he felt no need to explain himself. (As a young man during the French and Indian war he had been more outspoken, but he learned from experience to allow his sheer presence to speak for itself.) While less confident men blathered on, he remained silent, thereby making himself a vessel into which admirers for their.. leadership speech Joseph J. Ellis
7205b42 One of the petitioners, an infamous do-gooder of uncertain sanity named Warner Mifflin, had actually acknowledged that his antislavery vision came to him after he was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm. Joseph J. Ellis
e01567f The delegates from the southern states insisted that slaves were property, like horses and sheep, and therefore should not be counted as "Inhabitants." Franklin countered this claim with an edgy joke, observing that slaves, the last time he looked, did not behave like sheep: "Sheep will never make any insurrections." Joseph J. Ellis
bd13404 His massive probity, combined with his persistent geniality, made him impossible to hate. He lacked Washington's gravitas, Hamilton's charisma, and Madison's cerebral power, but he more than compensated with a conspicuous cogency in both his conversation and his prose that suggested a deep reservoir of learning he could tap at will. Permanently poised, always the calm center of the storm, when a controversial issue arose, he always seemed t.. Joseph J. Ellis
4c47b58 In Madison's formulation, the right to bear arms was not inherent but derivative, depending on service in the militia. The recent Supreme Court decision (Heller v. District of Columbia, 2008) that found the right to bear arms an inherent and nearly unlimited right is clearly at odds with Madison's original intentions.37 Joseph J. Ellis
50e6dab It was no accident that the beau ideal of his (John Adams') political philosophy was balance, since he projected onto the world the conflicting passions he felt inside himself and regarded government as the balancing mechanism that prevented those factions and furies from spending out of control. civic-duty community liberalism Joseph J. Ellis
64a64da In the summer of 1776, the average British soldier was 28 years old with seven years experience in the Army. The average American soldier was 20 and had known military life for only six months. accumulated-knowledge Joseph J. Ellis
443f4dc They were trying to orchestrate a revolution, which almost by definition generated a sense of collective trauma that defied any semblance of coherence and control. If we wish to rediscover the psychological context of the major players in Philadelphia, we need to abandon our hindsight omniscience and capture their mentality as they negotiated the unknown. history perspective stress Joseph J. Ellis
9613336 Clinton had displayed his lifelong tendency to make enemies of all his superiors, who never seemed to appreciate his advice as much as he thought it deserved. influence maturation rebellion submission Joseph J. Ellis
43fda60 John) Adams acknowledged that he had made himself obnoxious to many of his colleagues, who regarded him as a one-man bonfire of the vanities. This never troubled Adams, who in his more contrarian moods claimed that his unpopularity provided clinching evidence that his position was principled, because it was obvious that he was not courting popular opinion. His alienation, therefore, was a measure of his integrity. political-theater popularity Joseph J. Ellis
ad1ffbf If he (John Adams) could not control events, he could at least record them for posterity - perhaps the ultimate form of control. journalism perspective writing Joseph J. Ellis
0ab5381 I have often thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting a command under such Circumstances, I should have taken my musket upon my Shoulder & entered the Ranks or ... had retir'd to the back country & lived in a Wig-wam. --GEORGE WASHINGTON Joseph J. Ellis
ebd17a2 eager to oppose Thomas Paine's prescription in Common Sense for a huge single-house legislature that purportedly embodied the will of "the people" in its purest form. For Adams, "the people" was a more complicated, multivoiced, hydra-headed thing that had to be enclosed within different chambers." Joseph J. Ellis
7f2a5e9 the land of opportunity, where credentials mattered less than demonstrated ability. Joseph J. Ellis
ae650a5 Unquestionably, New York enjoyed enormous strategic significance. As Adams had already apprised Washington, it was "the nexus of the Northern and Southern colonies ... the key to the whole Continent, as it is a Passage to Canada, to the Great Lakes, and to all the Indian Nations." Joseph J. Ellis
c443c5f Namely, the very values that the American patriots claimed to be fighting for were incompatible with the disciplined culture required in a professional army. Republics were committed to a core principle of consent, while armies were the institutional embodiments of unthinking obedience and routinized coercion. The very idea of a "standing army" struck most members of the Continental Congress and the state legislatures as a highly dangerous .. Joseph J. Ellis
c645c7f But the question made no sense to the bulk of the troops, who regarded instinctive obedience to orders and ready acceptance of subordination within a military hierarchy as infringements on the very liberty they were fighting for. They saw themselves as invincible, not because they were disciplined soldiers like the redcoats but because they were patriotic, liberty-loving men willing to risk their lives for their convictions. Joseph J. Ellis
e81fb68 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the acknowledged architect of the British victory in the French and Indian War, rose to condemn the decision to militarize the conflict. He recommended the withdrawal from Boston of all British troops, who could only serve as incendiaries for a provocative incident that triggered a war. Joseph J. Ellis
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