Political Founding

History tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie when there were, in fact, many conflicts between the Founding Fathers - none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their disagreement centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention: the presidency. It also involved the nation's foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union.

Fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a document that would create a country and change a world: the Constitution. Here is a remarkable rendering of that fateful time, told with humanity and humor. Decision in Philadelphia is the best popular history of the Constitutional Convention; in it, the life and times of 18th-century America not only come alive, but the very human qualities of the men who framed the document are brought provocatively into focus - casting many of the Founding Fathers in a new light.

In 1740, New England experienced a social earthquake in the figure of a 21-year-old preacher. People were abuzz with his stunning oratory, his colorful theatrics, and his almost ungodly sense of power and presence. When George Whitefield arrived in the small towns and hamlets that made up the American colonies, he proved to be much more than anything the residents could have expected. His reputation and growing legend had been built on his brilliant speeches and frightening tirades, and his fame now engulfed what would become America.

Americans have always put the past to political ends. The Union laid claim to the Revolution - so did the Confederacy. Civil rights leaders said they were the true sons of liberty - so did Southern segregationists. This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation's founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to "take back America".

In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.

In this book, Neff reflects on history, politics, democratic theories, and principles in fictional dialogs allowing the Founding Fathers to express their theories on what truly makes America great, and what will provide the American people today with real freedom and prosperity.

Part coming of age, part political intrigue, Founding Stones questions what it means to be a citizen of the world. Trouble simmers in a small Pacific Northwest town when generations of secrets collide. Hannah, the daughter of the largest berry farmer in the county, searches for her voice after her twin sister dies of cancer. She jumps into the controversy around immigrant workers at the farm, and naively causes further problems.

How did the founding generation intend for us to interpret and apply the Constitution? Are liberals right when they cite its “elastic” clauses to justify big government, or are conservatives right when they cite its explicit limits on federal power? Professor Brion McClanahan, popular author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, finds the answers by going directly to the source—the Founders themselves, who debated all the relevant issues in their state constitutional conventions.

In 1787, delegates from the recently independent 13 colonies met in Philadelphia to try to forge a new, stronger constitution. That summer, the representatives ironed out a document that had pluses and minuses for all involved, a point noted by Ben Franklin in explaining why he assented to it at the end of the process.

The Founding Fathers have been hailed for centuries as shining examples of men who put aside their own agendas to found a nation. But behind the scenes, there were more petty fights and fraught relationships than signatures on the Declaration of Independence. From the violent brawl between Roger Griswold and Matthew Lyon in the halls of Congress to George Washington's battle against his slave, Harry Washington, these less discussed clashes bring to light the unpredictable and volatile nature of a constantly changing nation.

After 72 arduous years, the fate of the suffrage movement and its masterwork, the 19th amendment, rested not only on one state, Tennessee, but on the shoulders of a single man: 24-year-old legislator Harry Burn. Burn had previously voted with the anti-suffrage forces. If he did so again, the vote would be tied and the amendment would fall one state short of the 36 necessary for ratification. At the last minute, though, Harry Burn’s mother convinced him to vote in favor of the suffragist, and American history was forever changed.

Brian Phillips Murphy follows the collaborations between political leaders and a group of unelected political entrepreneurs, including Robert R. Livingston and Alexander Hamilton, who persuaded legislative powers to grant monopolies corporate status in order to finance and manage civic institutions.

In 1799, at the behest of President George Washington, Patrick Henry came out of retirement to defend the Constitution that he had once opposed and to thwart Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, whom Washington accused of putting party over country and threatening the fragile union. For the People, For the Country tells the remarkable story of how the most eloquent public speaker of the American Revolutionary era and a leading antifederalist during debates over ratification of the Constitution reemerged on the side of the federalists and once again changed history.

Bitter fighting over deficits, taxes, and spending bedevils Washington, D.C., even as partisan gridlock has brought the government to the brink of default. Yet the more politicians on both sides of the aisle rant and the citizenry fumes, the more things seem to remain the same. White House Burning looks squarely at the burgeoning national debt and proposes to defuse its threat to our well-being without forcing struggling middle-class families and the elderly into poverty.

A small group of men and women, fed up with the oppression that grips this once great country, is determined to set the nation back on course. They are patriots with a mission to create fairness, truth and hope by reestablishing the economic opportunities that our society once enjoyed. To achieve this, these loyal Americans must fight a heart-pounding modern day war.

Why has John Quincy Adams been largely written out of American history when he is, in fact, our lost Founding Father? Overshadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as hyper-intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from the malodorous 1828 presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery.

Washington's Farewell Address Made Easier is a quick and delightful visit into the heart, mind, and soul of George Washington. He gives a brief glimpse into the challenges and workings of self-government and America's amazing formula of success, for which he has been aptly named The Father of Our Country.

In The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America, Richard R. Beeman offers an ambitious overview of political life in pre-Revolutionary America. Beeman uncovers an extraordinary diversity of political belief and practice. In so doing, he closes the gap between eighteenth-century political rhetoric and reality. Although the majority of people living in America before the Revolution would not have used the term "democracy," important changes were underway that made it increasingly difficult for political leaders to ignore "popular pressures".

At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than 200 years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution.

>For the People offers a new interpretation of populist political movements from the Revolution to the eve of the Civil War and roots them in the disconnect between the theory of rule by the people and the reality of rule by elected representatives. Ron Formisano seeks to rescue populist movements from the distortions of contemporary opponents as well as the misunderstandings of later historians.From the Anti-Federalists to the Know-Nothings, Formisano traces the movements chronologically, contextualizing them and demonstrating the progression of ideas and movements.