000 04423nam a2200445 i 4500
001 sky302495944
003 SKY
005 20220218165404.0
008 201109s2021 nju b 001 0deng
010 _a2020032382
020 _a0691210233
_q(hardback)
020 _a9780691210230
_q(hardback)
040 _aDLC
_beng
_erda
_cDLC
_dSKYRV
_dMiTN
042 _apcc
043 _an-us---
050 4 _aE302.1
_bR376 2021
082 0 0 _a973.3092/2
_223
100 1 _aRasmussen, Dennis C.
_q(Dennis Carl),
_d1978-
245 1 0 _aFears of a setting sun :
_bthe disillusionment of America's Founders /
_cDennis C. Rasmussen.
246 3 0 _aDisillusionment of America's Founders.
260 _aPrinceton :
_bPrinceton University Press,
_c[2021]
263 _a2103.
264 1 _aPrinceton :
_bPrinceton University Press,
_c[2021]
300 _a288 pages ;
_c25 cm.
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent.
337 _aunmediated
_bn
_2rdamedia.
338 _avolume
_bnc
_2rdacarrier.
504 _aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 _aPrologue: a rising or a setting sun -- Washington. 1. The demon of a party spirit ; 2. Farewell to all that ; 3. Set up a broomstick -- Hamilton. 4. No man's ideas ; 5. Struggling to add energy ; 6. The fruit and the worthless fabric -- Adams. 7. Such selfishness and littleness ; 8. His rotundity ; 9. The brightest or the blackest page -- Jefferson. 10. Weathering the storm ; 11. The knell of the Union ; 12. The consolidation or the dissolution of the States -- Interlude, the other Founders. 13. No cheering prospect -- Madison. 14. Far from desponding ; 15. Grounds for hope -- Epilogue: a very great secret.
520 _a"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"--
_cProvided by publisher.
600 1 0 _aAdams, John,
_d1735-1826.
600 1 0 _aHamilton, Alexander,
_d1757-1804.
600 1 0 _aJefferson, Thomas,
_d1743-1826.
650 0 _aFounding Fathers of the United States.
651 0 _aUnited States
_xPolitics and government
_y1783-1809.
651 0 _aUnited States
_xPolitics and government
_y1809-1817.
651 0 _aUnited States
_xPolitics and government
_y1817-1825.
700 1 _aWashington, George,
_d1732-1799.
776 0 8 _iOnline version:
_aRasmussen, Dennis C., 1978-
_tFears of a setting sun
_dPrinceton : Princeton University Press, [2021]
_z9780691211060
_w(DLC) 2020032383.
999 _c506539
_d506539