University of Texas professor H.W. Brands has written another important book on American history. Perhaps best known for his book on FDR (Traitor to His Class), Brands holds the Jack Blanton Sr. Chair in History at UT Austin. He spoke in November at the Texas Book Festival, in the House Chamber of the State Capitol.
This is certainly the most impressive venue to give a talk anywhere in the state of Texas, and as it dealt with the Founders of the country, it was the most natural place for his presentation of Founding Partisans. “I found something idiosyncratic about every character in the book,” he said. I will give a capsule summary from his talk about these main characters, before delving more deeply into the text of the book itself.
George Mason
Alexander Hamilton: “The term ‘conservative’ has changed its meaning. Hamilton is often associated with being a conservative but he wanted a more powerful authority as president in charge of the executive branch. He got bored and left the Constitutional Convention for 2 months. He was the original extreme Federalist, and the leader of the merchant class.”
Thomas Jefferson: “Jefferson was the one most prone to flights of philosophy as he talked in abstractions. He thought the constitution should be rethought every 15-20 years. He was the most effective partisan warrior of the bunch.”
John Adams: “He put his heart on the page.”
John Quincy Adams: He wrote “The mob has overthrown every free republic.”
James Madison: “He had the most lawyerly mind. He was the one who got the constitutional vehicle going. He said government needs to be strong to keep down factions.” Brands said he is particularly fond of Madison.
In the book, the subject of factions, or parties, is a key element. Why were the founders opposed to parties? “King George,” Brands said in his talk, “was a villain in one person who served the purposes of the patriots. They thought faction was responsible for the problem with Parliament…The years 1791/92 was the turning point when it was accepted more partisanship was necessary.” In his Farewell Address, Pres. Washington warned Americans against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” He went on to write of exactly the situation facing us now. Speaking of popular governments, Washington stated “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, is itself a frightful disposition. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.” By giving their loyalty to an individual, he will “turn this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.” Factionalism became rife in the late 1790s and early 1800s, and we see it again today. Time and again, when reading the book, I saw clearly how the words of the Founders have special relevance today, when we are faced with millions of gullible people who are willing to swear their allegiance to an individual who will ruin liberty for all. When we see a certain party (formerly known as Lincoln’s party), doing everything Putin could ever hope for, the words of Pres. John Adams take on a special sense of foreboding: “The moment a party is formed abandoned enough to resort to foreign influence for support, that moment may be considered as the commencement of the decline and fall of a republic.” 2024 could very well be the year when the mob overthrows the American Republic.
“If three years ago, any person had told me that at this day I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws and constitutions of our own making as now appears, I should have thought him a bedlamite – a fit subject for a madhouse.” This could have been written by Joe Biden three years before he took office as President, looking at the Insurrection against the Capitol building. But it was actually written by George Washington in 1787.
The words of George Mason (pictured), who refused to sign the Constitution, are also startlingly relevant. He feared the power of the presidency, as outlined in the Constitution. “The president has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.” These words could have been written in 2024, as DT has promised to pardon the very traitors he instigated to stage the Insurrection!
As Brands writes in his account of a rebel force in Pennsylvania 1794, “The enemies of American liberty never slept; they merely awaited their chance to destroy the republic.” Was that 1794, or 2024? The world will find out after the presidential election this November. Hamilton made it quite clear that we should expect a horrible demagogue like DT, but how to respond is left unsaid. “Every country is cursed by the existence of men who, actuated by irregular ambition, scruple nothing which they imagine will contribute to their own advancement and importance. In republics, fawning or turbulent demagogues.”
Quite apart from the astounding parallels with America 2024, this book gives us an extraordinary evocation of the late 18th and early 19th century American politics. Nearly every page is replete with direct quotations from the founders and other people of the era. While he includes his own take on what was happening, the author relies heavily on what was actually being written and said. Thus, we get – as close as possible – a first-person perspective on the founding of the country. An extememly good book, and highly recommended.
In his address in Austin, Brands gave us all something to ponder for the future. Speaking of the nascent government of the late 1700s, Brands said “When something is brand new it’s easy to see how fragile it is. It was not inevitable it could continue. It behooves us to regard this as an experiment in representative government and leave it in good shape for the next generation.”
Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics is by Doubleday. It lists for $32.50