The Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation Sparknotes

In the modern world, machines such as cell phones, computers, and cars have become necessities. Each unique type of machine contains different parts that work together to function as a whole. Even in history, when cell phones, computers, and cars had not yet been made, events and circumstances revolved around the same “parts working together as a whole” principle. In Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph J. Ellis analyzes six events in American History that were the result of factors, like people and places, working together to make history. The factors that took place before the six events were crucial to the future of America and its people. In Chapter 1, The Duel, Ellis examines the story of Alexander Hamilton’s death.

This appeal soon reached the government, where various reactions occurred; while most Northerners remained silent, a few spoke out in agreement with the Quakers, and the Southern representatives were mostly outraged. What the Southern representatives hated most about the Quaker petition, was that it “was really a stalking horse for a more radical and thoroughgoing scheme to end the institution of slavery itself” (82). The Quakers had a plan to eradicate slavery all together. First they would eliminate the slave trade, then they would abolish the institution of slavery. The Southern representatives saw this plan as a threat, while the Northern representatives maintained their silence for the most part. This divide in the government made it hard for the states to work together, and “the inability to take decisive action against slavery in the decades immediately following the Revolution permitted the size of the enslaved population to grow… eventually over 600,000 Americans would die… to resolve the crisis” (88). Had the Northerners spoken up for what they knew was right, the nation might have been able to civilly reach an agreement. However, since the Northerns chose silence, but did not conform to Southern ways, bitterness developed between the two sides, and years later the Civil War

Jefferson and Adams began as close friends who relied on each other all throughout the Revolutionary period. However, when the Farewell Letter came out, it quickly became clear that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would be campaigning against each other. This fierce competition of between two men with “important political and ideological differences… differences that became the basis for the opposing sides they took in the party wars of the 1790s” (163) eventually drove their friendship apart. Having lost their support systems, both Jefferson and Adams had to find other people they could lean on. For John Adams, he “fell back to his family for advice, which in practice made Abagail his unofficial one-woman staff” (188). Abagail, John’s wife, supported him when no one else was by his side. Meanwhile, “Jefferson and Madison had bonded as Virginians” (172). Thomas found a friend in James Madison, who even helped Jefferson campaign for the upcoming election. With the men having different support systems, and different political views, their once solid friendship shattered into pieces under the pressure of the first presidential