Since the 1980s, Ellis argues, the political right has engaged in a persistent, well-funded and “radically revisionist” act of historical fraud, painting government as “demonic” in the eyes of its creators. Faced by the reality that [John] Adams anticipated — deep, endemic, expanding inequality — conservatives peddle Jeffersonian remedies, like the crippling of federal power. Ellis thinks the right has been so successful in selling this “extreme version of capitalist theology” that it has, to a meaningful degree, shut down the centuries-old debate about the role of government. The advocates of regulation and economic reform have been shouted down and shoved to the sidelines, Ellis contends, turning “mainstream politics” into “a one-sided conversation, a muted version of the American Dialogue.”.... NYT Review of American Dialogue by Joseph EllisA fascinating review of a book I think I should read but probably never will. I remember this debate taking place in my history classes in high school and college. But no longer I imagine. I keep telling people you can't understand what is happening today without looking back to the past. (Check out this Nov. 1960 article on JFK's victory.)
But no one wants to listen. Just yesterday at a luncheon where I was the only one present who was an adult in the 60s, I was asked if those years were as divisive as now. YES I said. Maybe more so. Here is more from the review by Jeff Shesol.
Jefferson’s romantic notion that economic and social equality would be the natural order of American life and Adams’s retort that “as long as property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families. … The snow ball will grow as it rolls.” Jefferson’s was the prevailing view at the time. Meanwhile Adams’s “prophecy,” as Ellis notes, struck most of his peers as “so bizarre and thoroughly un-American … that it served as evidence for the charge that he had obviously lost his mind.” Adams saw no way to prevent the consolidation of wealth and power by American oligarchs, but he did believe it could and must be moderated — regulated — by a strong national government....John Adams an early version of late 19th- mid 20th century reformers?
There can be no question whose forecast was right. Jefferson’s ideal of an egalitarian, agrarian society was an anachronism before the 19th century was out, while the Gilded Age, near that century’s end, provided garish confirmation of Adams’s insight. So, of course, does the current age. Turning his attention to the present, Ellis paints a vivid if familiar picture of the redistribution of wealth to the top of the income scale, as well as the abandonment — indeed the denigration — of Adams’s belief that, in Ellis’s words, “the free market required regulation for capitalism to coexist with the egalitarian expectations of democracy.”I loved this review, though I don't think I have the patience to read the book.
History was my favorite subject from elementary school on. There was possibly some kind of bias in the material against the Federalists and in favor of the Jefferson wing of the party because of the attitudes I emerged with by the time I left college. That the Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams were patrician bad guys and Jefferson and Madison were truer Democrats. Actually, I remember Madison being views as Jefferson's lackey in some ways. (We visited both their houses which were not far apart in Virginia.) But Madison may be the true father of our nation due to the work he did in getting the constitution passed. If not for him we might need a passport go to New Jersey.
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Did Madison intend the constitution to be read like a biblical tome, ala the late Justice Scalia?
Ellis argues, the prevailing conservative doctrine of “originalism” is a pose that rests on a fiction: the idea that there is a “single source of constitutional truth back there at the founding,” easily discovered by any judge who cares to see it. As a historian, Ellis takes particular offense at the machinations made by Justice Antonin Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) — a sophist’s masterpiece of an opinion that concluded the founders sought to arm the American people without limit and without end. Though Scalia is gone, his ideology remains ascendant, while Madison’s heirs, the proponents of a “living Constitution,” are “on the permanent defensive.” History, to that end, is bastardized, sanitized and turned into talking points.Over the decades my views have shifted because of the new information and interpretations and John Adams has continued to rise. And Madison is just a giant - though he was supposedly short.
Actually I believe the founding fathers stature in history is connected to their heights.
Washington was 6'3"
Jefferson was 6'2"
Adams was 5'7"
Madison was 5'4"
Below the fold is the entire review.
