Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different By Gordon Wood

History Midterm Paper
Why are today’s politicians compared to the founding figures that built this nation’s government? The answer to this question perhaps lies in the book “Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different” by: Gordon Wood. This book gives readers an insight on some of this nation’s founding fathers, and how they came to be so memorable. Wood’s main point in writing this book is to show the readers how character is of the utmost importance for these different leaders of the new transforming government. Most of the founding fathers have a strong character some, however, will sometimes question theirs. Which in return will cause the people to doubt them as well. As time passes and the Founders pass on their revelations,

These words, however, have changed their meaning over the course of time. Wood does not define them in the way that today’s society does. He interprets the meanings of these two words in the time of the revolutionary. Everything is face to face and in person. Therefore, the “character” Wood is referring to in revolutionary time means that the Founders do not share their personal lives to the public, and the people only see what the Founders wish for them to see. In keeping “character” the Founding Fathers are able to have two separate lives. They are also respected more by the citizens. The Founders are, in a way, considered actors. The word “disinterested” Wood refers to means that Founding Fathers are willing to put all of their personal interest to the side for the better of the people. Wood makes it very clear that the Founding Fathers were not born into wealth. Most of these men are born in the middle or low class, do not have much money, and many of them are of the first to go to college in their families. The Founders are not handed their roles on a plate, they have to do all of the work themselves. These men are very ambitious, and try to serve the nation for the greater good, rather than self-interests. This is not as common with the people in government of today’s

The chapter about Washington is a great representation of Woods point of character. “Not only did he have to justify and to flesh out the new office of the presidency, but he also had to put together the new nation and prove to a skeptical world that America’s grand experiment in self-government was possible” (Wood p. 48). In the end, Washington “was an extraordinary man who made it possible for ordinary men to rule” (Wood p. 63). Another example of one of the Founding Fathers who has improved the nation’s government is Alexander Hamilton. He is one of the Founders that are strongly into large business and large government. He was able to combine an idea and politics. Hamilton is the reason the two are so closely tied together, and in doing this, he is known as the man who made modern America. He also envisioned America to have large debts, military force, and a modern economy with the large government. This is why Hamilton is probably the only who would understand America today. These are just some of the examples that Wood gives throughout the book that entail the difference in the Founders and todays