The very long title and subtitle of this book comprise a good summary of its content from beginning to end. The founders of America were deeply influenced by the Greece and Rome, by the examples of their leaders, by their culture and by their writings.
Thomas Ricks shows how the classical world shaped the lives and leadership of the first four American Presidents. Each of these Presidents: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison took very different lessons from the classical world, but that influence was evident throughout their lives and especially in their Presidencies.
For George Washington, the only one of the first four Presidents who did not attend college, the classic world, especially the Roman Republic, was his example for how to live. He carried himself with dignity in every situation and rarely showed emotion. Only a few times during the Revolutionary War did he allow himself a public display of anger. Even fewer during his Presidency. Although he did not study the classics, the classical world was in him from his teens to the end of his life. Even his final great act of leaving the Presidency amid a clamor for him to run again was guided by the example of Cincinnatus returning to his plow.
John Adams was vain and contrary and acerbic with little of the quiet dignity that guided Washington, but the Roman Republic guided his thinking and actions. He read and re-read Cicero and thought his times the most well-document period of ancient history:
The period in the history of the world the best understood is that of Rome from the time of Marius to the death of Cicero, and this distinction is entirely owing to Cicero’s letters and orations. There we see the true character of the times and the passions of all the actors on the stage . . . Cicero had the most capacity and the most constant as well as the wisest and most persevering attachment to the republic. Almost fifty years ago I read Middleton’s Life of this man . . . Change the names and every anecdote will be applicable to us (the Founders).
Thomas Jefferson, the third President, was more influenced by Ancient Greek history and culture. For him, Athenian democracy provided the guide to all of his leadership from the writing of the Declaration of Independence to his two terms as President. The Declaration of Independence would be an amazing document in any era or any place, but as a statement of a fledgling nation rebelling against the greatest military power of their time and saying all men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--that was amazing. (The end of slavery was in Jefferson's first draft, taken out by the Continental Congress.)
Throughout Washington's Presidency and into Adam's term, Jefferson fought against those within the government who wanted America to be a monarchy. Hamilton was first among those who wanted America closer to England and led by a hereditary monarch.
Compared with the iron will of Washington and the combative Adams, Jefferson was a more affable. He was a lover of parties, at home in France, and enjoyed life.
James Madison, the fourth President, was by far the most bookish and studious of the first four Presidents. The Declaration of Independence was a singular act of rhetorical genius from Jefferson, whom John F. Kennedy thought the most brilliant of the Founders. The Constitution grew out of a year in which Madison studied everything he could find from the ancient world and contemporary sources. He wrote a document that became the beginning of the Constitution, was instrumental in the work of creating the final document, and then he wrote of the one-third of the essays that explained and defended the Constitution. The 85 essays that he, Hamilton and John Jay wrote became the Federalist Papers.
While the book focuses primarily on the first four Presidents, other founders come in and out of the story. Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and Ben Franklin are important to the story Ricks is telling.
Seeing how America began and how the first Presidents saw the world helped me to better understand where we are now. On one hand, reading this book shows the almost infinite distance in character from dignity of Washington, the firm resolve of Adams, the brilliance of Jefferson, and the reasoned determination of Madison to malignant stupidity of the 45th President. If is almost impossible to believe a list with those four and Abraham Lincoln and both Roosevelts and Harry Truman could also contain Trump. I have trouble believing they are of the same species.
Read the book and enjoy where we came from. It gave me a glimmer of hope for where we could be going.
