海角大神

Just about everything Joseph Ellis needs can be found in late 18th-century America. Or, rather, the former colonies that led to the creation of the United States of America.

Ellis鈥檚 r茅sum茅 includes biographies of founders and presidents George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Another book explores the relationship of John and Abigail Adams.

Then, too, there are his broader sketches of a larger cast of statesmen (hello, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and so on) who pushed for the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War. In these books, 鈥淔ounding Brothers鈥� and 鈥淩evolutionary Summer,鈥� Ellis examines the daring and perilous notion of even attempting to break away from England.

Now, in the month that America celebrates its 239th birthday, Ellis is telling another important story from the Revolutionary Era. In The Quartet (290 pages, Knopf, $27.95), he details the dramatic uncertainty of converting military victory over the British into a united and independent nation.

Concentrating on the years 1783 through 1789, Ellis offers a vivid, nuanced portrait of an overlooked part of our history. Many Americans, this one included, tend to think of Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence, then a war that included struggles at Concord and Valley Forge and, finally, the French helping run off the British. From there, it鈥檚 on to a quickly adopted constitution, the Civil War, a couple of World Wars, Civil Rights, Watergate and on to iPhones, Uber, Caitlyn Jenner and Deflategate.

Or something like that. Ellis delves into the disparate views and political debates engulfing the future United States following the British surrender. His quartet 鈥� George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison 鈥� combined willpower, political savvy, and resilience to overcome a prevailing sentiment that any kind of national government would represent another form of tyranny and oppression.

What seems so obvious, that the radical colonists who broke from England would abhor the idea of being tethered to another form of centralized political power, is, in mainstream popular history, an idea that is rarely explored. Or, as Ellis puts it, 鈥渢he very term American Revolution implies a national ethos that in fact did not exist in the population at large.鈥�

Drawing on an expanding collection of letters and documents, Ellis backs up his assertion 鈥渢hat by 1787 the confederation [of states] was on the verge of dissolution.鈥�

In 1781, the 13 鈥渟overeign states that were nations themselves鈥� formed a confederation, a loose alliance that afforded little national authority of any kind. During and after the Revolutionary War, the perpetually underfunded confederation sank deeper into debt. Washington and Hamilton struggled to feed, clothe and arm their ragtag soldiers. After the war, veterans received no pensions for their service.

Ellis, again and again, puts contemporary readers in the mindset of the period. People then lived out their lives in a 30-mile radius and often viewed anyplace else with suspicion.

They lived, he writes, 鈥渋n a premodern world that is forever lost to us. That world was pre-democratic, pre-Darwin, pre-Freud, pre-Einstein, pre-Keynes, and pre-Martin Luther King Jr.鈥�

Congress, when it bothered to convene, was not designed to carry out national domestic and foreign policy to any significant degree. Quorums occurred on an occasional, haphazard basis. Were it not for Washington鈥檚 ingrained, unspoken belief in a military subservient to civilian rule, the independent states could easily have been subjected to a martial government.

Ellis notes 鈥渢he transition from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution cannot be described as natural.鈥� And, he writes, without Washington鈥檚 appearance at the 1787 convention, hardly a sure thing, even the conversation would have stalled. Madison played the most prominent role in the creation of the Constitution, but without the nationalist backing and vision of Jay and Hamilton, the Constitution and Bill of Rights could not have been completed and approved.

In several instances, Ellis reminds his readers of the importance of re-examining what these now-sacred founding documents weren鈥檛 intended to be. Madison viewed the Bill of Rights as an add-on to placate critics, not a philosophical document to be preserved for eternity. So, too, with the Constitution, the foundation of our democracy, but not, in the minds of its supporters, an unwavering document never or rarely amended.

Ellis makes special mention of the controversial right-to-bear-arms Second Amendment.

鈥淚t is clear that Madison鈥檚 intention in drafting his proposed amendment was to assure those skeptical souls that the defense of the United States would depend on state militias rather than a professional, federal army,鈥� Ellis writes. 鈥淚n Madison鈥檚 formulation, the right to bear arms was not inherent, but derivative, depending on service in the militia. The recent Supreme Court decision [in 2008] that found the right to bear arms an inherent and nearly unlimited right is clearly at odds with Madison鈥檚 original intentions.鈥�

Ellis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 鈥淔ounding Brothers鈥� and the National Book Award for his Jefferson biography, spoke to The Monitor about the struggle to make the states united and other Revolutionary matters during a recent interview. Following are excerpts from that conversation.

On his interest in writing about another historical period: I鈥檝e thought about moving off into the 20th century on occasion. I started to do a book on George Kennan, the great statesman [and diplomat]. But it got co-opted by somebody who had done the authorized biography.

But in moments of doubt I refer back to that great figure in American history, the bank robber Willie Sutton, who back in the '50s was this lovable guy who kept robbing banks and getting caught and getting thrown in the hoosegow. They asked Willie why he kept robbing banks and he said, 鈥淏ecause that鈥檚 where they keep the money.鈥� (Sutton himself later wrote that he never said those words but the phrase has long been credited to him anyway.)

And the late 18th century is sort of the Big Bang in American history, the moment when the values and institutions that still abide in the oldest enduring republic in modern history were all created and so there is a sense that you can never know too much about it. History is an accumulative discipline 鈥� historians are like symphony conductors, they get better with age. Part of that鈥檚 because it requires a reservoir of knowledge and a level of distillation and digestion. And the papers on these prominent figures have been coming out now for 50 years and they鈥檙e reaching, in many cases, the end.

This happens at a time when the historical profession is moseying on down other trails, looking for the neglected or the voiceless women, Native Americans, African-Americans, so at the very moment we can now know more about the most prominent of the so-called founders, most professional historians are not looking there. I鈥檓 one of the few card-carrying historians that鈥檚 written a lot about this.

On the origins of the book: The seeds were planted when I was asked to judge an oratorical contest at a middle school for dyslexic boys in Putney, Vt., because my son was teaching there. I was forced to listen to 28 young boys try to recite the Gettysburg Address. At some point in the process, I realized that the first clause in the first sentence of what is arguably the greatest speech in American history is historically incorrect. 鈥淔our score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation.鈥︹�� Well, no, they didn鈥檛. They brought forth a collection of sovereign states that rebelled from England as sovereign states and then they went their separate ways after the Revolution under the Articles of Confederation. So, if you begin with the assumption that Lincoln is making, that we are a nation that comes together to declare independence, then it鈥檚 no great transition to 10 or 11 years later when we come together to declare our nationhood. But that鈥檚 not true. That鈥檚 not the way it happened.

I think, for the vast majority of Americans, they don鈥檛 think about this at all. For those that are even historically literate, though, this period from the Declaration to the Constitution is a kind of dead zone. And so a recognition that there鈥檚 a different story that needs to be told was the inspiration to try to tell it. Most historians aren鈥檛 looking for this 鈥� again, they鈥檙e interested in other topics and I鈥檓 not begrudging them that at all. I think what they鈥檙e writing in some cases is quite valuable but, as a teacher in a liberal-arts college, I鈥檓 forced to teach the mainstream story because these kids don鈥檛 know it. I realized this story isn鈥檛 known.

It doesn鈥檛 fit what we want to believe. In a democracy, what we want to see is major changes effected from the bottom up. That is at least partially true for the Revolution itself, for the war. Mobs did form, this was a popular movement. There was also about 20 percent of the population that were royalists, another 30 percent that wished the whole thing would just go away.

But the move from independence to nationhood, there were no mobs forming to do this, nobody wanted this. It was not popular because most people didn鈥檛 have horizons that went beyond the fences of their farms or the borders of their towns. Plus, the whole rationale for rebelling from the British was to escape some far-away government that didn鈥檛 have your own interest in mind. And the creation of a federal government looked eerily similar to the very kind of parliamentary government that we were escaping from. So the only way this could have happened was from the top down.

Unless you think the creation of the Constitution and the formation of a sovereign American nation was a mistake 鈥� believe it or not, there are some people that think that 鈥� then this is a major event that needs to be understood in ways that thus far it hasn鈥檛. This leads me to the quartet as four people who were instrumental in instigating and then collaborating to orchestrate both the coming of the convention, the convention itself, ratification and then, in Madison鈥檚 case, single-handedly writing the Bill of Rights. They didn鈥檛 do it alone. There were 55 people at the convention in Philadelphia and there are 1,646 in the various ratification conventions, but these are the people that led it and oversaw it.

On how the quartet led the way: I don鈥檛 want to be misunderstood to in any way suggest these people were divinely inspired, that tongues of fire appeared over their respective heads at any time. Or that they had some unique access to heavenly wisdom. No, they were all men, flawed in all the ways that men are flawed, but in this particular moment, they came together and made something happen that was otherwise never going to happen.

If they hadn鈥檛 done that, we wouldn鈥檛 be the United States of America. Playing out the alternative scenarios is a game that nobody can claim is a science, but I think we would have seen the Europeanization of the North American continent. That is, we would be like a big EU if we had stayed together. More than likely, the Civil War would have happened earlier, the South would have been a separate confederation, probably would have signed an alliance with Britain because Britain needed its cotton, all these are highly speculative. But the United States wouldn鈥檛 be the major power in the world that it is.

On the Tea Party sentiment through American history: In 1787, the anti-federalists, who oppose the Constitution and oppose it on the grounds that it repudiates the principles of 1776, what they鈥檙e saying is, 鈥淓ven though I voted people into this government, I don鈥檛 think they really represent me because the government is too far away.鈥� Patrick Henry, in the ratification of the commonwealth of Virginia, said, well, suppose a law of tax is passed by this new government and all the representatives from Virginia voted against it, then we鈥檙e being taxed without our consent.

Now, you see, that鈥檚 what people down in Texas think about the Affordable Care Act. That鈥檚 the real origin of the Tea Party. The real origin of the Tea Party isn鈥檛 the Boston Tea Party, it鈥檚 the anti-federalists, who basically are saying, 鈥淓ven though you think we鈥檙e represented and claim that, we still think of government as them, not us.鈥� This can assume paranoid proportions, back then and now. That鈥檚 a longstanding tradition. It鈥檚 not a terribly noble tradition because this is the same group that makes the argument that they had to protect slavery because of the states鈥� rights argument, the same argument in regard to desegregation.

On slavery being ignored at the Constitutional Convention: The neo-abolitionists of today who look back 鈥� one thing you鈥檝e got to remember, abolitionists in the 19th century said, 鈥淟et the South go in peace. We don鈥檛 want war.鈥� That鈥檚 what would have happened if they would have forced the issue in Philadelphia in 1787: The South would have seceded then.

The founding generation faced an impossible choice. Do you want to create a new national government or do you wish to make a moral statement about slavery? And you can鈥檛 do both. It鈥檚 an intractable problem.

It鈥檚 a tragedy. Is it a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean tragedy? A Greek tragedy means it鈥檚 built-in, it鈥檚 inevitable. A Shakespearean tragedy means that human behavior or agency could have changed it. I don鈥檛 see how they could have done it. If you think they (could have), you have an obligation to explain how they could have put slavery on the road to extinction. Most of the people in Philadelphia (at the convention) thought slavery was going to die a natural death. If they could contain it in the Deep South, it would just die because slave labor could not compete on equal terms with free labor.

So we can isolate it and it will die. They didn鈥檛 foresee the cotton gin and the cotton kingdom. Adams thought that, Jefferson thought that, although Jefferson鈥檚 really going to fail the test on this. They didn鈥檛 know what was going to happen in the first half of the 19th century. They saw it moving in a different way.