An important new history of the most authoritative voices about the revolutionary era, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Founding Brothers and the National Book Award-winning American Sphinx, featured in the American Revolution film directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Bottstein, and David Schmidt, on PBS.An astonishing look at how America's founders-Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Adams-addressed the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A bold and important action that ultimately addresses the two great failures of America's founding: the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid the displacement of indigenous people.On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans were an integral part of the North American population. The slave trade flourished, even as the thirteen colonies were armed to defend themselves against the idea of forced rule. This paradox gave birth to what was written by one of our most prominent historians, Joseph J.Ellis describes this situation as a“great contradiction”: how could a government founded on the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence entrench slavery? And how could it allow a tidal wave of migration westward by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean the pursuit of indigenous lands?
Elegantly narrative and witty in irony and irony, Ellis addresses the questions lurking at America's twisted roots-questions that turned even the brightest minds of the revolution generation into people with mental deformities.He discusses the earliest debates on slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, from the Constitutional Convention to the New York Treaty, revealing the thinking and justifications behind Jay, Hamilton, and Madison's revisions of the Articles of Confederation, and highlights the key role of figures such as Anthony Benezet, an anti-slavery Quaker, and Creek tribal leader, Alexander McGillivray.Ellis writes frankly and brilliantly, his voice resounding louder than contemporary historians and fanatics eager to turn the founders into spoils in the ongoing culture wars. Instead, Ellis tells a story rooted in the coexistence of greatness and failure, brilliance and blindness, and grace and sin.
