America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800

Bernard Weisberger's "America Afire: Jefferson, Adams and the First Contested Election" is a curious book. Weisberger wishes to focus on the Election of 1800 but spends a GREAT DEAL of time laying the foundation - going as far back as the Constitutional Convention. The pivotal Election of 1800 takes up only 2 chapters. In telling the story of the Election of 1800, Weisberger is also required to spend some time laying the groundwork for the Alexander Hamilton/Aaron Burr rivalry. Even more curious is the label "First Contested Election." If by "contested" Weisberger means an election where there was more than one candidate for President, then the Election of 1796 would be the first "contested" election. If by "contested" Weisberger means contentious, then the title makes more sense. The first half of "America Afire" moves slowly as the reader slogs through Weisberger's "background." I found the first half of the book tedious to the point of doldrums. Weisberger does a whole lot of recounting but little analysis. One would be better reading Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis. The second half of the book takes off especially with Weisberger's treatment of the Alien and Sedition Act. At the time he wrote it, there had only been three elections which were not decided in the ballot box - the Election of 1800, the Election of 1824 and the Election of 1876. If he had only waited until after the Election of 2000, I wonder how different the book would have been. There are significant parallels between the Election of 1800 and the Election of 2000. One final note, the text of the paperback edition is small and light and, as a consequence, difficult to read.

Bernard A. Weisberger's America Afire (Jefferson, Adams, and the First Contested Election) is a both a marvelous tale and a wonderful slice of history. It covers similar ground (and the 1790's in America is probably one of the richest historical hunting ground around) as Joseph Ellis' Founding Brothers but in a more narrative fashion that will keep the reader gripped from beginning to end. One of the great joys of this books is that it is not strictly about the election of 1800 but, rather, about the decade that preceded it and resulted in the nail biter showdown between Jefferson and Adams (and then in bizarre twist betweem Jefferson and Burr). The book gets the story just right and manages to tell the sometimes complex tale in a comprehensible and straight forward manner to delight any reader. A nice introduction to this fascinating period of American history.

America Afire provided a dramatic look at American history from the Constitutional Convention through the deaths of Adams and Jefferson. Weisberger gives a vivid account of lesser known stories of the era. He also tracks the political careers of men such as Hamilton and Burr. The book actually spends most of the time explaining the events leading up to the contested election of 1800 - but in doing so lays a rich framework that helps the reader appreciate how crucial the election was. The book was informative and a pleasure to read. I especially enjoyed the rivalry between Hamilton and Burr.

America Afire's portrayal of late 18th Century America is sure to fascinate anyone with even a minimal interest in American history. Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Burr leap from the pages of Weisberger's descriptive, yet unassuming prose. The events depicted are fascinating. The development of the democratic ideals that we now take for granted is particularly compelling.Perhaps even more intriguing is America Afire's adept depiction of the "unfatherly" behavior and attitudes of our founding fathers. Their views and actions are often unsettling, and sometimes downright frightening. America Afire dispels with the myth that the originators of the American Constitution were beyond petty politics and biased interpretations of the Constitution they had just written. They often felt and expressed vile hatred for each other - much beyond anything that the American public would tolerate today. As Weisberger ably demonstrates, this pettiness almost destroyed our nation in its infancy.I will leave for the reader the factual particulars of Weisberger's account. The pages read like a novel, and even the most ardent student of American history is likely to learn many interesting tidbits regarding our nation's earliest days. This book should be read by every American high school student. American Afire brings our early history alive.

Here's the perfect book for this election season, and one which sets our minds at ease knowing this wasn't the only closely contested election in American history.More than that, however, is the brilliant portrait Weisberger paints of our Founding Fathers. While they came together in Philadelphia to proclaim independence, they would come together later in Philadelphia to participate in political machinations against each other concerning the future direction of the young republic. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would suffer a rupture in their friendship that would last over ten years, not only over the course the Adams presidency took, but the mud that was slung in the campaign of 1800.The capper to all this, and it should come as no surprise, was the role of the media (newspapers) in exploiting and encouraging the slander, the accusations and the tension between the Federalists of Adams and the Republicans of Jefferson. The media of today has nothing on the writers of the late Eighteenth Century who made absolutely no pretense about where their loyalties were. Weisberger makes it into a fascinating backdrop to the election, showing the passion and the tenor of the times.As to the principals of 1796 and 1800, Adams is portrayed as a brilliant man, caught in the middle between England and France, while trying to steer America on a neutral course. All the while in the background is the figure of Alexander Hamilton, pulling strings to replace Adams with a friendlier Federalist candidate and almost costing Adams the 1796 election as a result.Jefferson comes across as a consummate politican, accepting the Vice-Presidency in 1796 with a hostile Adams as President, waiting his chance in 1800 when he saw the time as being right. Adams will suffer through numerous foreign policy errors concerning France, some of his making and others the result of his Republican opponents. The Republican newspapers would cause Adams to make the biggest blunder of his Presidency over the opposition of such Federalists as John Marshall, The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1898, ostensibly designed to deport hostile foreign-born residents (mostly French) who were wont to side the Republicans and to make it a crime to criticize the Government of the United States. It was a mistake that would have disastrous consequences for him in the next election.And yet, all of this wonderful history could turn to the dullest lead in the wrong hands. Weisberger takes the facts of America's early years and makes them come alive for the reader. By employing a clear, concise style that eschews both bombast and the tendency to lose the narrative in an ocean of information, Weisberger keeps us on the edge of our seats throughout the book, even though we already know how it comes out.