"I never indeed thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose aim or stroke you could never be sure of."--Thomas Jefferson on Aaron Burr

" A]lways an honest Man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."-- Benjamin Franklin on John Adams

"I do now know Jefferson] to be one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in all America."-- John Nicholas to George Washington

"I shall really regret to leave Mr. Jefferson, he is one of the choice ones of the Earth."-- Abigail Adams

More than two centuries after the ground-breaking events of the American struggle for independence, its key figures strike us more as players in a myth than as people who lived, worked, and interacted with one another. To recover the human dimension of the founders, we need look no further than their own words. Through a series of revealing quotations, historian John P. Kaminski profiles thirty of the era's best-known individuals, including Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry ("all tongue without either head or heart," according to Thomas Jefferson), as well as the early presidents and their first ladies.

The discourse is unfailingly respectful, and yet this is no mutual admiration society. The subjects are not afraid to be sharp about one another, but this only makes their words of praise more convincing and poignant. One could hardly ask for a more clear-eyed, and touching, tribute than Thomas Jefferson's appraisal of George Washington: "He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern.... His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man."

Beginning with an introductory essay that provides an overview of the relationships between the founders, the book then presents each individual, providing a biographical sketch and a chronologically arranged series of quotations, clarifying not only each person's place within the independence movement but the contours of their character. The authors strike us with their candor, their insight, and their eloquence as they make their subjects come alive for us. As this book reveals, greatness is not only a matter of responding to the times; the people themselves were remarkable.

More than any other Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson made his reputation on the brilliance of his writing. John Adams chose the 33-year-old Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence largely because of his "masterly Pen." The genius of the Declaration and Jefferson's later writings amply confirmed Adams's judgment. Few writers have said so much on so many subjects--and said it so well--as Jefferson. "The Quotable Jefferson"--the most comprehensive and authoritative book of Jefferson quotations ever published--demonstrates that as does no other book.

Drawing primarily on "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson," published by Princeton University Press, John Kaminski has carefully collected and cleverly arranged Jefferson's pronouncements on almost 500 subjects, ranging from the profound and public--the Constitution--to the personal and peculiar--cold water bathing.

"The Quotable Jefferson" is the first book to put Jefferson's words in context with a substantial introduction, a chronology of Jefferson's life, the source of each quotation, an appendix identifying Jefferson's correspondents, and a comprehensive index. The main section of Jefferson quotations, which are arranged alphabetically by topic, is followed by three other fascinating sections of quotations: Jefferson on his contemporaries, his contemporaries on him, and Jefferson on himself.

This book will delight the casual reader and browser, but it is also a serious and carefully edited reference work. Whatever the subject, if Jefferson said something memorable about it, you are likely to find it here.

For a quarter of a century between 1763 and 1788, Americans intensely debated the nature of government and the need to protect individual liberties. The debate climaxed in the arguments over the ratification of the Constitution. Through a selection of essential documents from 1787 and 1788, this new edition gives readers the flavor and immediacy of the great debate in all its fire, brilliance, and political intensity. Organized by topic, this is a convenient reference and teaching tool. This updated edition contains an entirely new section on the debate over class structure, property rights, and the economy under the proposed Constitution an ideal introduction to a debate meaningful today."

Roots of the Republic shows how the Constitution was a product, not simply of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but of a legal and philosophical tradition almost two centuries old. The editors have selected eighteen key documents in the development of that tradition and reproduced them with essays that explain what they mean, why they were written, and why they are important today. Each key document is accompanied by an interpretive essay written by a contemporary scholar. These essays focus on the importance of each frame of government and include commentaries on why they are meaningful today. Intended to help readers learn how to read and understand these documents, the book is also a handy reference and a strong introduction to the development of political thought and the debates surrounding the formation of the state governments and the federal union.

As the largest, oldest, and wealthiest of the original thirteen colonies, Virginia played a central role in the fight for independence and as a state in the new republic. This importance is reflected in the number of Virginians who filled key national leadership positions. Three remarkable Virginians stand out in their service to the new nation: George Washington as commander in chief during the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson as the philosophic voice of the country, and James Madison as the chief architect of the nation's new constitutional system. In The Great Virginia Triumvirate, John Kaminski presents a series of biographical portraits that bring these three men remarkably to life for the modern reader.

The passage of time, coupled with the veneration so often surrounding historical figures, has obscured the subtleties and complexities of the founding fathers' characters. To cut through this fog of myth, Kaminski relies on the words of the three Virginians themselves, sharing with us a trio of eloquent, and often candid, voices. (Jefferson once told John Adams that he had not written a history of his times because that history was to be found in his correspondence, where he could be especially direct and honest.) Kaminski also turns to the people who personally knew the three great Virginians--their friends, family, acquaintances, and enemies. Through their public and private writings, as well as the observations of their contemporaries, the subjects' distinctive qualities as individuals can be glimpsed with depth and immediacy.

Taken from letters, speeches, diaries, and memoirs, the quotations and vignettes included here shed light on the actual person behind each public image. George Washington offering a bowl of hot tea at night to a guest at Mount Vernon who has a cold; Thomas Jefferson extending condolences to John Adams on the death of his wife, Abigail; and James Madison bequeathing the silver-hilted walking cane, left him by Jefferson, in turn to the third president's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph--such moments reveal personality and character in a way that no official act ever could.

"Much is known to one which is not known to the other," Jefferson wrote, "and no one knows everything." The cumulative effect of many voices, however, can create a portrait of invaluable insight.

Originally published in German in 1988, the late Jurgen Heideking's exhaustive study of the debates over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution compares the methods used to call state ratifying conventions and explores everything that made up the ratification debate, from town meetings and festive culture to private correspondence and print media. In Heideking's view, the construction of a new political process was an unintended but key result of ratification debates over the federal Constitution. Heideking's work anticipated diverse strands of subsequent scholarship; this translation can claim to provide not only an invaluable account of the ratification debates but also a master narrative for integrating future studies.

For a quarter of a century between 1763 and 1788, Americans intensely debated the nature of government and the need to protect individual liberties. The debate climaxed in the arguments over the ratification of the Constitution. Through a selection of essential documents from 1787 and 1788, this new edition gives readers the flavor and immediacy of the great debate in all its fire, brilliance, and political intensity. Organized by topic, this is a convenient reference and teaching tool. This updated edition contains an entirely new section on the debate over class structure, property rights, and the economy under the proposed Constitution-an ideal introduction to a debate meaningful today.