Founding Brothers

Submitted By jazus97
Words: 2392
Pages: 10

Different perspectives can offer you a different view at the same events. In the novel Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, the reader can get a more in depth look to some important events that shaped the history of our country. This book can give you a different perspective to what is presented to you in textbooks because it gets very detailed and personal in multiple events throughout history. This can be very important for young historians because it can give them a different view to what was occurring and to help them understand what was taking place. Also, this novel can give it readers can change how you view the certain time period or event. All of these reasons show how the stories in this book can shape the minds of a young historian that is different from what they can learn through a textbook or their teacher. The preface tells us what is going to be discussed in the book. It explains how this novel goes in depth into some of the important situations throughout the early stages of our country's existence. It also tells what the stories are going to be about. This includes how the achievement of the revolution were collective, how all of the politicians knew each other, how they knew that their actions would be looked at by people of the future, and how they dealt with the issue of slavery. All of these ideas mentioned in the preface set the stage for the rest of the book. Many people feel that confrontations can easily settle disputes. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr believed that dueling would resolve all of their problems. This duel wasn’t described with detail in textbooks. All that was said was how there was a duel between the two of them, Hamilton was killed, and that Burr became psychotic after that. What people didn't know is what lead up to the duel, the details during the duel, and the fall out of the duel. This confrontation occurred because of the hatred that both people publicly displayed towards the other. One major reason of why Burr strongly dislikes Hamilton was because of what happened during the election of 1800. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were both running for the presidency. Since neither won the votes in the Electoral College, the job of choosing the presidency went to the House of Representatives, which was primarily Federalist. Hamilton would lobby for Jefferson to become president instead of Burr because Hamilton deemed him too “dangerous” to be the president. This may have been taught be some textbooks or teachers, but there was even more fuel to be added to this fire. In 1804, a letter that was sent from Dr. Charles D. Cooper to U.S. Senator Philip Schuyler was published in the Albany Register. This letter would contain things said by Hamilton that could be seen as rude remarks towards Burr. This would lead to a series of letters that would be exchanged between Burr and Hamilton. After many letters and public criticizing, all Burr wanted as a public apology to settle this dispute. Hamilton would respond by saying that fifteen years worth of arguing, bickering, and hatred towards each other can’t be settled by a simple apology. Eventually, Burr would challenge Hamilton to a duel that he couldn’t refuse. This is where the details become kind of fuzzy. Leading up to the duel, both people were showing some kind of hesitation, but never backed down. In the end, Burr would end up fatally shooting Hamilton and kill him. There were many theories that were created as to what actually happened during the duel, but nobody will ever know the real truth of what happened, except that Hamilton had been killed. Afterwards, Burr would show some resentment to what he had done. What he didn’t know was how bad his falling out would be. Burr was named as a killer and murderer among other things. He would eventually turn “crazy” when he wanted to become the president of New England and secede from the Union. He would also do other things in hopes of gaining power. Many of these details would be