Giants of the revolution that worked

As the United States of America -- like the Roman republic before it -- makes the slippery transition to Empire, it is understandable that its citizens have lost their identity. Those old enough to remember the republic are old enough to care; the younger, ignorant of our origins, blandly trade in their citizenship for attention-challenged consumerism or religion.

Against this background of national confusion and uncertainty there have been recent books about the American Revolution and its makers, a desperate attempt, one suspects, to put us once more in touch with the best of ourselves, presumably in the hope that we can be inspired by or learn from the example of those to whom we refer (on autopilot) as our Founding Fathers. This is a good if tardy idea. It is worse than a crime that we don’t know about our revolution; it is a mistake. Our revolution has the distinction of being the only movement of its kind fomented by a clique of geniuses. And it is the only revolution that ever worked.

Perhaps the most elusive genius of the bunch was George Washington -- elusive because, unlike Thomas Jefferson, he was not a writer and, unlike Abraham Lincoln, he was never photographed. He was primarily a man of action, and if his actions didn’t die with him, they are certainly taken for granted today. Worshipped in his own time, Washington ascended to godhood so quickly that his human reality vanished with him. Even among his contemporaries, the Father of His Country mysteriously stood out, taller (6-foot-4), aloof, alone. As Joseph J. Ellis relates in “His Excellency George Washington,” “Benjamin Franklin was wiser ... Alexander Hamilton more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated ... yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior ... the Foundingest Father of them all.”

Ellis, author of numerous books about the men of the American Revolution (Jefferson and Adams among them, as well as “Founding Brothers”), has written a lively and engaging overview of Washington, one that should be required reading for all of our disconnected, discontented citizenry. Ellis’ biography isn’t as exhaustive as James Thomas Flexner’s “Washington: The Indispensable Man,” nor as detailed as David Hackett Fischer’s “Washington’s Crossing” (a movie waiting to happen), but he does give us an accessible portrait of the man, not merely his actions but plausible guesses about and interpretations of his interior life.

And what a life. The early exploits of Washington, born into genteel poverty in the Virginia backwoods, read like the adventures of Indiana Jones. A self-made man who married into money and clearly saw that America’s future lay in the West, he didn’t leave continental America (except once for a brief excursion to Barbados). A prickly combination of aggressive ambition and unsentimental realism, pragmatism and machismo, he was slow to make up his mind but immovable once he had. As the leader who held the revolution together by the force of his personality over the course of eight arduous years, Washington’s stamina (physical and emotional) served him well. And it didn’t hurt that he was incorruptible: He accepted no salary for almost a decade’s work with no time off.

Washington’s introspection deepened as the war dragged on: Increasingly he saw the value of a nation and not a series of loosely interconnected sovereign states; increasingly he understood and supported the egalitarian goal. (But he remained always -- the elite exception -- “His Excellency.”) Among the country’s founders, Washington had the least formal education, but he was not shy about soliciting the opinions of experts. In Ellis’ pithy analysis, he “led by listening ... his genius was judgment.” He pondered the issue of abolition and eventually supported it, freeing his slaves upon his death, the only slave-holding Founding Father to do so.

It is remarkable that when the chips were down, Washington was a man who almost always did the right thing -- even if it also served to burnish his image. When the war was finally over and he was riding the crest of insatiable idolatry, he retired (so different from Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon and Mao) and went home, which Ellis calls the greatest exit in history. And it was sincere. Washington, exhausted with public life, had no intention of ever rejoining it.

How much more remarkable, then, that after realizing that the Articles of Confederation -- the first attempt to link the 13 new sovereign states -- were as flawed as the wartime Continental Congress, Washington agreed to come out of retirement and chair the constitutional convention that (illegally) junked the Articles and replaced them with a governmental structure drawn from scratch. And as he saw the new government take shape, he must have known that his retirement would again be postponed by his becoming our first president. He was the one thing the entire country could agree on.

The presidency itself was another series of firsts. Washington had to figure out just what the job entailed (the Constitution was distinctly unhelpful) and what precedents he was setting. After settling on the appellation “Mr. President,” he convened a Cabinet modeled after his councils of war and populated it with the ablest statesmen in American history -- including Jefferson as secretary of State; Hamilton as secretary of the Treasury; Vice President John Adams and James Madison, who would author the Bill of Rights -- as well as appointing the stellar John Jay as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. But the presidency stifled and drained Washington. Party politics confounded him and tested his legendary self-control. When he lost it, his temper was volcanic. Washington males died young (his father, Gus, died when George was only 11), and he longed for permanent retirement. After reluctantly serving a second -- acrimonious -- term, no amount of pleading could induce him to remain. He had done everything he could; the country must now sustain itself without him.

Ellis writes simply but eloquently. His prose is lucid, graceful and witty, his book hard to put down. He asks the questions the general reader might pose, and his well-researched and informed speculations, especially regarding his subject’s psychological inner life, are answered persuasively. He is particularly effective in sorting out the distinctions between Washington’s professed views and his personal opinions. Washington knew he was living history and felt an obligation to play the role expected of him. Since even his most intimate correspondence had to have been penned with one eye on future readers, reading between the lines is a daunting, nuanced task. Ellis’ brevity is another virtue. As biographies seem to grow ever longer, it is pleasant to report that an author’s understanding of his subject can sometimes trump sheer data.

As John Ferling explains in “Adams vs. Jefferson,” the vitriolic party politics that began during Washington’s second term erupted following the disastrous presidency of Washington’s successor, former Vice President John Adams, who ran against his former vice president, Thomas Jefferson. Americans accustomed to the secular sainthood of Washington now were forced to choose sides, as Ferling explains in his account of the bitterly contested election of 1800, the election during which, he maintains, our two-party system was born. The battle lines were drawn between the Federalists (Adams was their candidate), who, while supporting the Constitution, distrusted what they called “demobcracy,” and the Republicans (backers of Jefferson), who favored small towns, farmers and states rights. (These Republicans are not to be confused with the Republican Party of which Lincoln was the first candidate and whose platform was manifestly different.)

Understandably we think of the Founding Fathers as historical forces, as statues or documents. But they were also flesh and blood, and the tale of Adams and Jefferson is a painful and moving one. They were friends, then enemies, then friends again over a period of more than 50 years. Ferling does a good job of summing up the similarities that made their friendship possible as well as the differences destined to drive them apart: Jefferson’s rooted antipathy to the idea of a powerful centralized government versus Adams’ conviction that a consolidated government was essential to the revolution’s survival.

Jefferson, though he was at pains to conceal it, fought dirty, hiring scurrilous pamphleteers to drag Adams through the mud. He believed that the very soul of the country was at stake, and this belief doubtless justified in his mind all measures he took to ensure victory. In fact, the campaign included slander on both sides. There were some who claimed that Adams favored a hereditary presidency, while others felt Jefferson’s atheism and endorsement of the French reign of terror made him a bloodthirsty Jacobin. Two congressmen even got into a brawl, one using a cane and the other a pair of fire tongs, on the floor of the House.

In the end, the Byzantine voting rules for the electors of different states produced a result completely unforeseen by the infant Constitution (under which the winner would be president, the runner-up vice president), when Jefferson tied with his running mate, Aaron Burr. Frantic horse-trading and backroom dealing ensued amid dark predictions of civil war. But in the end Jefferson -- perhaps by cutting a secret deal with his enemies, the Federalists -- managed to wrest the presidency from his erstwhile friend by one vote, thus establishing the peaceful transference of power from one party to another. Rather than witness Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams fled to Boston.

Ferling’s language is clear and efficient but rarely evocative, though one choice phrase describes Hamilton’s essays as having “a shimmering malice.” The two men never saw each other again. But the tale does not end here.

In 1812, a mutual friend coaxed Adams into wishing Jefferson happy birthday. To his surprise and delight, his letter was answered and so began the most famous correspondence in presidential history. Jefferson, retired in Virginia, and Adams, living on his farm outside Boston, knew they were writing for posterity as well as themselves as they argued, joked and complained of their infirmities and attempted to explain themselves before the bar of history.

As amazing as it seems, they both died on the same date, July 4, 1826 -- 50 years to the day after they had signed the extraordinary document they had created to begin the nation. Past feuds were forgotten and Adams’ last (erroneous) words were said to be, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” In fact, Jefferson had died earlier in the day. *