Presidents Above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789-1829George Washington's vision was a presidency free of party, a republican, national office that would transcend faction. That vision would remain strong in the administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, yet largely disappear under Andrew Jackson and his successors. This book is a comprehensive and pathbreaking study of the early presidency and the ideals behind it. Ralph Ketcham examines the roots of nonpartisan leadership in Western thought and the particular influences on the founding fathers. Intellectual and political profiles of the first six presidents and their administrations emphasize the construction each put on the office, the challenges he faced, and the compromises he did and did not make. The erosion of nonpartisanship under Andrew Jackson is presented as a counterpoint that helps define the early presidency and the permanent transition from it. Addressing the thoughtful citizen as well as the scholar, the author poses the fundamental questions about presidential leadership, then and now. The best study of the early presidency, this book is an intellectual portrait of the age that will challenge received notions of American history. |
From inside the book
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Page x
... perhaps not too much to say that Washington , Jefferson , Madison , Monroe , and the Adamses hear- kened all their lives to these Augustan giants , accepting not so much their explicit politics as their evocation of the admired ...
... perhaps not too much to say that Washington , Jefferson , Madison , Monroe , and the Adamses hear- kened all their lives to these Augustan giants , accepting not so much their explicit politics as their evocation of the admired ...
Page 8
... perhaps the most difficult question before the Convention had been reached , the chairman , George Washington , was probably puzzled at the silence ; but seeing no one preparing to speak , he properly asked " if he should put the ...
... perhaps the most difficult question before the Convention had been reached , the chairman , George Washington , was probably puzzled at the silence ; but seeing no one preparing to speak , he properly asked " if he should put the ...
Page 19
... Perhaps most revealing , however , Mather liked to suggest that Win- throp was an American Aeneas who led a saving remnant to a new land . " More clearly than any other pagan hero , " a modern scholar has noted , " pious Aeneas , the ...
... Perhaps most revealing , however , Mather liked to suggest that Win- throp was an American Aeneas who led a saving remnant to a new land . " More clearly than any other pagan hero , " a modern scholar has noted , " pious Aeneas , the ...
Page 22
... perhaps especially colonials anxious to retain polish and elegance , might also absorb some of his conviction that a patriot leader could con- tribute more to the common good than could parliamentary demagogues pandering to popular ...
... perhaps especially colonials anxious to retain polish and elegance , might also absorb some of his conviction that a patriot leader could con- tribute more to the common good than could parliamentary demagogues pandering to popular ...
Page 27
... perhaps also Thomas Hobbes ... could plausibly be interpreted on the basis of their actual writings as not honestly accepting it . " 38 However much thought and practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries might seem in ...
... perhaps also Thomas Hobbes ... could plausibly be interpreted on the basis of their actual writings as not honestly accepting it . " 38 However much thought and practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries might seem in ...
Contents
3 | |
11 | |
The American Presidency 17891837 | 87 |
Republican Dilemmas Virtue and Commerce Leadership and Party | 163 |
Notes | 237 |
Index | 261 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abigail Adams accepted Adams's administration admired Alexander Pope American Revolution ancient Augustan Bernard Mandeville Bolingbroke Britain British Buren Cato century Charles Francis Adams Classical colonies commercial common conception Congress Constitution Convention corruption cultural Daniel Defoe defended Defoe democratic Dunciad early presidents economic eighteenth eighteenth-century election England English ethic executive power faction Federal Federalist Franklin George Hamilton ibid idea ideal ideology insisted J. Q. Adams Jackson Jacksonian James Madison Jeffersonian John Adams John Quincy Adams John Winthrop Jonathan Swift legislative legislature liberty Mandeville ment modern monarch Monroe moral nation Number opposition Parliament partisan partisanship patriot king patriot leader Pitt Plutarch political parties president's principles prosperity public philosophy Puritan quoted radical Whig republic republican Revolutionary role rulers scorned self-interest sense six presidents society sought spirit Thomas Jefferson thought tion Tory trade traditional United virtue virtuous Walpole Walpole's Walpolean Washington wealth Wilson Writings wrote York