Founding Brothers Chapter Summary

I am doing my book review on the biography Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis, who is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and who also, has graduated from Yale University with his PhD. Ellis is also known for writing American Sphinx: the Character of Thomas Jefferson and American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. In Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation, Ellis explains many significant events that happened during the evolution of America. If the first chapter The Duel, Joseph J. Ellis goes into deep discussion about the duel that took place on July 11, 1804 and the relationship between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. During this time in history, duels were against the law, so they told as little people as possible. The duel took place at Weehawken, New Jersey. Both Burr and Hamilton brought two of their friends to the duel. Burr shot Hamilton in the hip and Hamilton died later that day. At the time, Aaron Burr was the vice president of the United States while Thomas Jefferson was the

The Quakers brought a petition to the House of Representatives to end these things but congress thought it was ridiculous and stated that no laws ending slavery were allowed to be passed until 1808. The problem with this though is Benjamin Franklin had signed a petition to end slavery and he was looked at with great honor. Even though it was very hard to over look this, they continued with their law that no laws could be made against slavery until 1808. They still had done some research on slavery and had discovered that on the 1790 census, there were 694,280 slaves accounted for. The fourth chapter in this biography, The Farewell, Ellis talks about Washington’s farewell address, which just explained how Washington was now retiring from public life. Some people were shocked by this announcement but many were