The Virginia Dynasty: 4 Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation

From a small expanse of land on the North American continent got here 4 of the nation’s first 5 presidents–a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and finally modified the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe have been born, grew to manhood, and made their properties inside a sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Associates and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the US Structure, and constructing a working republic. Appearing collectively, they doubled the territory of the US. From their disputes got here American political events and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day. On this elegantly conceived and insightful new guide from bestselling creator Lynne Cheney, the 4 Virginians aren’t marble icons however very important figures deeply intent on constructing a nation the place residents may very well be free.

Specializing in the intersecting roles these males performed as warriors, intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us again to an exhilarating time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. However even because the Virginians superior liberty, equality, and human risk, they held folks in slavery and have been slaveholders once they died. Lives constructed on slavery have been incompatible with a free and simply society; their actions contradicted the very beliefs they espoused. They managed nonetheless to go down these beliefs, and so they turned highly effective weapons for ending slavery. They impressed Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and immediately undergird the freest nation on earth.

Taking full measure of strengths and failures within the private in addition to the political lives of the boys on the middle of this guide, Cheney presents a concise and authentic exploration of how the US got here to be.