The Age of Federalism

Authors Eric McKitrick and Stanley Elkins deservedly won the Bancroft Prize in 1994 for their brilliant analysis of arguably the most tempestuous epoch in American political history. The authors note that modern Americans cannot truly understand the America of the 1790s. National political culture was, in their assessment, inchoate and malleable in the decade after the ratification of the Constitution. They argue that if Tocqueville had visited the US in the 1790s instead of 1831 he would not have been able to write "Democracy in America." The contours of American life and themes of democratic society that Tocqueville wrote about and that have remained so enduring and thus familiar to 21st century Americans simply did not exist in the last decade of the 18th century. The objective of this book is thus to understand how the Federalists - claiming many of the most revered Founding Fathers in their ranks and in most ways trumpeting a vision of American society and economy that ultimately prevailed - could have been politically annihilated so quickly and completely. For Elkins and McKitrick the contest can be reduced to an ideological battle between Hamilton and Jefferson over competing visions of the future of America. And more than anything else, foreign policy was the dividing line between the competing sides. One of the ironies of the age, as described by the authors, is that while Americans everywhere obsessed about their country's relationships with England and France, officials in London and Paris really had little interest or concern about their relationship with the fledgling Republic on the other side of the Atlantic. Events that took on monumental proportions in the US, such as the signing of the Jay Treaty or the Convention of 1800 with Napoleon, were insignificant episodes in Europe, where the entire continent was engaged in an apocalyptic struggle for national survival. Although Jefferson and Hamilton are the primary protagonists in the drama, they do not individually dominate the storyline. In fact, the authors employ an interesting approach to creating their narrative. It is a mix of chronological and thematic storytelling that works incredibly well. For instance, a chapter will focus specifically on a single year, say 1791, and will also concentrate on a specific theme, such as James Madison and his mix of ardent nationalism, loyalty to Virginia and his contribution to the ideological foundations of the Constitution, the composition of the Federalist Papers and his rather stunning conversion to strict constructionism in the face of Hamilton's sweeping economic program. The authors write with admirable clarity and describe the basic political and ideological fault lines cogently and with flair. "The Age of Federalism" represents a balancing of the historical record to a certain extent. The authors are rather sympathetic to the Federalists and many of their leading lights and most notable achievements, and respectfully

This is a splendid, well-written study for the general reader about the Federalist period, which runs from approximately 1788 through 1800. This book is very well documented, and gives great insight into the key players in that critical period, their concerns, the alliances they made and broke, and how they marshalled public opinion and financial backing for their views. Careful attention is paid to the character and activity of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, and other supporting players. For anyone who wants to acquire a good grounding in early American history, this is a great place to start. The source materials, bibliography, and footnotes alone are worth it. Fortunately, the text is highly readable as well, and flows with authority and wit. Highest recommendation.

This book is about the fateful decisions and maneuvers our government took in the dozen years after the Constitution was adopted and the new country launched. The predatory European powers were a danger. The states, suddenly demoted to mere parts of a much larger entity, had local interests that sometimes boisterously resisted the new central government. Even the location of the federal capital became a focus for plots and low comedy. Finally, the Constitution left many things unsaid that had to be worked out in these first few years so that the government could run at all. The spine of the story, though, is the ideological split between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, the two most brilliant exponents of the new constitution and partners in getting it accepted. They fell out over issues dear to Hamilton and repugnant to Madison: a national bank, funding of the Revolutionary War debts, and the encouraging of manufacturing and commerce. The assuming of the war debt by the new federal government and its funding through the new bank meant that various bonds, notes, and IOU's that had been floating around for years, and trading at about 1 percent of their face value, suddenly became worth something. The subsequent scramble to speculate in all this paper repelled Madison and Jefferson. Hamilton was more sophisticated than these planter-aristocrats in the ways of money, and he viewed the scenes of greed and folly as no more than the means by which the debt would approach to par value and, through the Bank, become an actual resource for the use of capitalists in need of loans. Madison -- and increasingly, Jefferson -- very self-consciously formed an "interest": the Republicans. They stood for states' rights as against the too-vigorous centralizing tendencies they saw Hamilton encouraging. They stood for the independent farmer as against the "money men" of the cities and their dependent mobs of factory workers. How could the virtue necessary to a true democracy be nurtured in a dark Satanic mill or a counting house? The interesting thing about this "interest" of theirs was that they dared not call it a "party": that idea was anathema to the age -- Washington himself spoke much against party and faction. But that Republican interest proved to be, in nascent form, the first political party. It was soon opposed by another equally self-concious "interest": the Federalists, whose guiding spirit was Hamilton. This book traces the rivalry between Federalists and Republicans, parties before the age of political parties. The writing is fine, and charming portraits of the players in this drama, as they come and go, entertain even as they deepen the story. The authors' scholarship is well equal to the task (the book won the Bancroft history prize), and they rather playfully take time here and there to revise certain received ideas about the period, without simply setting up a new dogmatism. They are particularly strong on the diplomatic games that were afo

This superb book has to be one of the most memorable and thought-provoking works of modern history I have ever read. I bought my copy on a visit to the USA and read it immediately on my return home to New Zealand. I was riveted, not by the narrative so much, as by the sheer intelligence and reflectiveness of the authors. Rather than pile on a mountain of details, the book is constructed around a series of particular developments and problems, each of them analysed in a calm, lucid manner which is history-writing at its best. Best of all, I thought, was the authors' brilliant discussion of the foundation of Washington DC, which they seem to think was a colossal mistake. Had New York or Philadelphia been the capital, they suggest, then America would have possessed a culture of interchange between government, commerce and high culture; separation of the capital from other great centres of American civilization has had major implications for the cultural development of the United States. A provocative thought.

The Age of Federalism is a fascinating and in-depth review of the politics, ideas, personalities, controversies, and events that shaped the American nation during the Washington and Adams Administrations. From the character profiles of many key players in the 1790s to the carefully weighed and thoroughly presented analyses of the causes and outcomes of these events, this book shows you not just how our history was interesting, but why it is important to know. I came away hungry to see a similar treatment by McKitrick and Elkins of the years following the 1800 election. McKitrick and Elkins made me care about these events. This story and these compelling personalities held an almost soap opera level hold on my attention. Only it was a soap opera for smart people. It would be easy after reading this book to get into a heated argument over the policies of Hamilton and the methods of opposition to them chosen by Jefferson and Madison. It becomes clear that, had we had different leaders--or had they made different choices--the United States we know today could easily have turned out far differently. This book records the triumph of the great experiment, and the tragedy of the toll the founding exacted. To watch Madison and Hamilton slowly drift from true friends to bitter enemies was as painful as watching again the Zapruder film or the Challenger footage. In the end, the reader can look back and see that, despite the dour portraits our crumpled green currency presents, this was not time of boring dead white men, but an Age of Passion.