This was all before the 12th amendment to the Constitution made the elections between party tickets where the President and Vice President were both part of the same ticket (as it is today). In this case, the President and the Vice President did not work together very well. In this case, Adams won by three votes and Jefferson lost the Presidency but won the Vice Presidency. The book pointed out how the election winner was President and the second placer was the Vice President. Most significantly described in the book was the election of John Adams over Thomas Jefferson. Ellis takes the readers from George Washington’s last party through each subsequent leader and his importance to the country. For example, Ellis tells of the relationship between John Adams and his second wife, Abigail, who was referred to as his “one woman cabinet”. He gives each man back his intricacies or personalities rather than just recording what the men accomplished and how they accomplished what they did. The author’s primary intention was to record history from the perspective of the men who served the United States in the highest positions. Ellis points out that these men knew they were making history and many, like Adams, kept a record of correspondence for historical purposes. These men were responsible for the successful American Revolution that, if it had gone wrong, these men would have been charged with treason and hanged by the British.Įllis describes each man as they show up in history beginning with George Washington who, by the time of this book, was passing on the torch of leadership to Adams (after he won the election). Ellis is quick to point out that this generation was the “greatest generation in American history” (McDonald, p1). Most of their behavior was typical of that era but some of their behaviors were because of the stress of nation-building that the men had undertaken. The book goes into great detail about how each man felt about the other men and why they behaved the way they did. The primary theme of the book, Founding Brothers, was the relationships between the men in leadership positions in early American history. After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (2002).Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (2001).American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (1998).
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