Fears of a setting sun: the disillusionment of America's Founders

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Washington, George, 1732-1799

Rasmussen, Dennis C. (Dennis Carl), 1978-

Washington, George,1732-1799

Rasmussen, Dennis C.

Duraleigh Road Community
East Regional
Green Road Community
Oberlin Regional
Richard B. Harrison Community
Southeast Regional
Southgate Community
Wake Forest Community

Adult Non-Fiction

Duraleigh Road - Adult Non-Fiction
East Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Green Road Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Northeast Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Oberlin Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Richard B Harrison - Adult Non-Fiction
Southeast Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Southgate Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Wake Forest Community - Adult Non-Fiction

"Whatever sense of hope the Founder Fathers may have felt at the new government's birth, almost none of them carried that optimism to their graves. Franklin survived to see the Constitution in action for only a single year, but most of the founders who lived into the nineteenth century came to feel deep anxiety, disappointment, and even despair about the government and the nation that they had helped to create. Indeed, by the end of their lives many of the founders judged the Constitution that we now venerate to be an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation. This book tells the story of their disillusionment. The book focuses principally on four of the preeminent figures of the period (1787): George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. These four lost their faith in the American experiment at different times and for different reasons, and each has his own unique story. As Rasmussen shows in a series of three chapters on each figure, Washington became disillusioned above all because of the rise of parties and partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was not sufficiently vigorous or energetic, Adams because he believed that the American people lacked the requisite civic virtue for republican government, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions brought on (as he saw it) by Northern attempts to restrict slavery and consolidate power in the federal government. Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson were the most prominent of the founders who grew disappointed in what America became, but they were certainly not the only ones. In a final chapter Rasmussen shows that most of the other leading founders-including figures such as Samuel Adams, John Jay, James Monroe, and Thomas Paine-fell in the same camp. The most notable founder who did not come to despair for his country was the one who outlived them all, James Madison. Madison did harbor some real worries but a final chapter also explores why Madison largely kept the republican faith when so many of his compatriots did not"--

Book

Books

8ea58f05-bcc2-50bc-1d0d-09538a8e8eb9

9780691210230

2025-08-05T09:13:41.228Z

-1

Non Fiction

Non Fiction

973.3 RASMU

Wake County Public Libraries

Duraleigh Road Community
East Regional
Green Road Community
Northeast Regional
Oberlin Regional
Richard B. Harrison Community
Southeast Regional
Southgate Community
Wake Forest Community

9780691210230

2021

Princeton University Press

grouped_work

Adams, John, -- 1735-1826
Founding Fathers of the United States
Hamilton, Alexander, -- 1757-1804
Jefferson, Thomas, -- 1743-1826
United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1809
United States -- Politics and government -- 1809-1817
United States -- Politics and government -- 1817-1825

Fears of a setting sun : the disillusionment of America's Founders

Fears of a setting sun : the disillusionment of America's Founders / Dennis C. Rasmussen

Fears of a setting sun

the disillusionment of America's Founders

Adams, John
Founding Fathers of the United States
Hamilton, Alexander
Jefferson, Thomas
Politics and government