000			03680cam a22004338i 4500
001			on1193066753
003			OCoLC
005			20210304122109.0
008			201109s2021 njua e b 001 0deng
010			_a 2020032382
040			_aDLC _beng _erda _cDLC _dOCLCO _dOCLCF _dZGK _dJAS _dNFG
020			_a9780691210230 _q(hardback)
020			_a0691210233
035			_a(OCoLC)1193066753
042			_apcc
043			_an-us---
092			_a973.3092 _bR225
049			_aNFGA
100	1		_aRasmussen, Dennis C. _q(Dennis Carl), _d1978- _eauthor.
245	1	0	_aFears of a setting sun : _bthe disillusionment of America's Founders / _cDennis C. Rasmussen.
246	3	0	_aDisillusionment of America's Founders
263			_a2103
264		1	_aPrinceton : _bPrinceton University Press, _c[2021]
300			_ax, 277 pages : _billustration ; _c24 cm
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_aunmediated _bn _2rdamedia
338			_avolume _bnc _2rdacarrier
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_a"Whatever sense of hope the Founder Fathers may have felt at the new government's birth, almost none of them carried that optimism to their graves. Franklin survived to see the Constitution in action for only a single year, but most of the founders who lived into the nineteenth century came to feel deep anxiety, disappointment, and even despair about the government and the nation that they had helped to create. Indeed, by the end of their lives many of the founders judged the Constitution that we now venerate to be an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation. This book tells the story of their disillusionment. The book focuses principally on four of the preeminent figures of the period (1787): George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. These four lost their faith in the American experiment at different times and for different reasons, and each has his own unique story. As Rasmussen shows in a series of three chapters on each figure, Washington became disillusioned above all because of the rise of parties and partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was not sufficiently vigorous or energetic, Adams because he believed that the American people lacked the requisite civic virtue for republican government, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions brought on (as he saw it) by Northern attempts to restrict slavery and consolidate power in the federal government. Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson were the most prominent of the founders who grew disappointed in what America became, but they were certainly not the only ones. In a final chapter Rasmussen shows that most of the other leading founders-including figures such as Samuel Adams, John Jay, James Monroe, and Thomas Paine-fell in the same camp. The most notable founder who did not come to despair for his country was the one who outlived them all, James Madison. Madison did harbor some real worries but a final chapter also explores why Madison largely kept the republican faith when so many of his compatriots did not"-- _cProvided by publisher.
650		0	_aFounding Fathers of the United States. _9135066
651		0	_aUnited States _xPolitics and government _y1783-1809. _93125
651		0	_aUnited States _xPolitics and government _y1809-1817. _9193574
651		0	_aUnited States _xPolitics and government _y1817-1825. _985063
600	1	0	_aHamilton, Alexander, _d1757-1804. _93123
600	1	0	_aAdams, John, _d1735-1826. _928762
600	1	0	_aJefferson, Thomas, _d1743-1826. _93596
700	1		_aWashington, George, _d1732-1799. _940530
994			_aC0 _bNFG
999			_c324593 _d324593