37 pages • 1 hour read
Joseph J. EllisAmerican Creation
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
John Adams
Adams was a Massachusetts lawyer who studied at Harvard and became a leader of the revolution. His personality was excitable and energetic, “always on the verge of a volcanic eruption that threatened to overwhelm his opponents in a lava flow of words” (29). Because of his education, he often drafted political documents for the Continental Congress. He was a radical in desiring a split from England but was cautious enough to wait patiently for it. He thought the transition needed to be carefully managed in order to be successful, and he also sensed that it was an idea that needed time to ripen for the majority of the general populace. As a result, Ellis calls him “that rarest of creatures, a conservative revolutionary” (46).
In the spring of 1776, when a number of states sought his advice on drafting new constitutions, Adams wrote down his ideas, which were later published as Thoughts on Government. The book contained several ideas that would be used later when devising the Constitution. Adams also wrote a resolution in May of that year calling on states to draft new constitutions to replace their original British government charters. This was a declaration of independence in fact, if not in name, and Adams felt he never got his due—Jefferson’s later formal declaration eclipsed his.
Adams became the first American ambassador to England, the first vice president under Washington, and the nation’s second president. To the end, he tried to rise above the nascent development of parties and follow the classical model of the “Patriot King,” selfless and devoted to no faction but rather to the overall public good. He died on July 4, 1826.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was a Virginian who was prominent in the independence movement and among the most eloquent of the founders. He drafted the Declaration of Independence, which Ellis asserts contains the “seminal statement of the American creed” in its Preamble. Jefferson spent five years in Paris as minister to France, then served as secretary of state under Washington and vice president under Adams before being elected the nation’s third president in 1800. In 1803, he presided over the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France and set in motion its exploration by commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Ellis describes Jefferson’s complex personality as “many-chambered” with a predilection for “multiplicity” (169) and an aversion to personal conflict often interpreted as duplicity. In short, Jefferson was a brilliant but complicated individual whose ideas “seemed to run on two separate and parallel tracks that never intersected, thus making him simultaneously incapable of either candor or hypocrisy” (183). This served him well in the 1790s, when he and Madison formed the first political party in the United States, the Republicans—all while he denied doing any such thing.
He died on Independence Day in 1826, just a few hours before Adams.
James Madison
Madison was a Virginian who was instrumental to the creation of the Constitution and the Republican Party. A protégé of Jefferson’s, he, like his mentor, was born to the Virginia planter class; thus, they shared an outlook on many issues. Madison served in the House of Representatives, was secretary of state under Jefferson, and became the fourth president in 1809.
Short and slight of build, Madison was a painfully shy man, “the kind who drifted to the dark corners of a room on most social occasions” (100). Yet his mind was nimble and he assiduously prepared for whatever task he undertook. At the Virginia Ratifying Convention, he debated Patrick Henry, one of the nation’s most compelling speakers, and came out on top when the votes were cast. He had no real speaking style, Ellis writes, and “as a result his arguments arrived without flourish or affectation, in a sense the more impressive because of their austerity” (120).
Madison made important contributions to the 1787 Constitutional Convention debates, insisting on a bicameral legislature and arguing that a large country like the United States would be a stronger republic. Later, when he and Jefferson created the Republican Party, which sought to limit the power of the federal government, Madison rejected some of his own early arguments for a stronger central government.
He died in 1836, lauded as “The Last of the Founders” (100).
George Washington
Ellis calls Washington “the most prominent revolutionary of all” (4). He served as commander in chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and was the nation’s first president under the new Constitution, from 1789 to 1797. He was the consummate model of the “Patriot King,” serving the public good without regard to faction or party. Ellis also compares him to Cincinnatus, the Roman exemplar of virtue who relinquished office at the height of his power. Twice Washington voluntarily retired to his farm: after the Revolutionary War and at the end of his second term as president.
Washington was stately, even regal, in appearance, and “preternaturally calm and almost obsessively self-controlled” in temperament (29). His experiences during the war, dealing with various states that made decisions without an overarching policy, taught him the value of a strong central authority. He thus was an enthusiastic supporter of the Constitution that replaced the Articles of Confederation. As president, he was criticized by the Republicans for wielding too much executive power.
He died in 1799.
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