American resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility.
The young nation was lucky to have the only candidate on Earth who could do the job.
To know what the Framers intended, we need to understand the late-18th century historical context.
Without major compromises by all involved, and the agreement to avoid the contentious issue of slavery, the framers would never have written and ratified the Constitution.
A diminutive, persuasive Virginian hijacked the Constitutional Convention and forced the moderates to accept a national government with vastly expanded powers.
As America goes into its 55th presidential election, we should remember that there might have been only one if we hadn’t had the only original candidate on Earth who could do the job.
When John Adams was elected president, and Thomas Jefferson as vice president, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson stood together in America’s perilous dawn, but politics soon drove them apart. Then, in their last years, the two old enemies began a remarkable correspondence that is both testimony to the power of friendship and an eloquent summary of the dialogue that went on within the Revolutionary generation and that continues within our own.
