Founding Fathers

I have finally finished Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S. Wood. It took me 1.5-2 months to finish, but I actually really enjoyed this book. It took focus to read if I really wanted to learn from it, but I learned a ton about our Founding Fathers and the creation of our nation. So, in that way, it was very appropriate to stretch the reading of it through the beginning of July.

The premise of this book was to examine why we still so frequently say things like, "this wasn't what the Founding Fathers intended." It is very rare for a nation to care so much about what a handful of historical figures thought. Why do we still care? What made them so special that we would still look to them as individuals?

I thought it was fascinating to read about each of their ideas on how the country should be created and why they thought so. It was also interesting to see how popular images of some of these men are so wrong. For example, even thought Thomas Jefferson, was the "great minimal government president" he has been used to "support" the campaigns of presidents like FDR and Obama (because of how much he valued the individual).

I want to share two quotes from the book. They are both from the epliogue: The Founders and the Creation of Modern Public Opinion. The last few sentences of the book say:

It was not a world the founders wanted or expected; indeed, those who lived long enough into the nineteenth century to experience its full democratic force were deeply disillusioned by what they had wrought. Still, they had helped create this popular world, for it was rooted in the vital principle that none of them, Federalists included, ever could deny: the people. In the end nothing illustrates better the transforming power of the American Revolution than the way its intellectual and political leaders, that remarkable group of men, contributed to their own demise.

The Founding Fathers had so much faith in the people to create the country they (the Founding Fathers) had in mind, that they were shocked when the common people so quickly led the country away from what the Founding Fathers had intended. Fascinating. How many of those unintended outcomes are of great benefit to our nation? Would it be better if we really were the country they foresaw? But then again, the country which one foresaw--they all had such differing opinions.

Another quote discussing the spread of newspapers and the expanding group of people writing in them:

Others, however, dozens of writers and speakers, common, ordinary, obscure men, men without breeding, without learning, without character--in short, persons who were not gentlemen--were now presuming "without scruple, to undertake the high task of enlightening the public mind."

These new authors were like the bloggers of the 18th century. The so-called common, unqualified men who were having such a huge affect on the media and public opinion. I thought it was very interesting to see how this media/public opinion phenomenon is not a new issue at all.

This was a great read for anyone interested in America's history; I'd definitely recommend it!