A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic

by Francis D. Cogliano Narrated by Paul Boehmer

Overview

Martha Washington's worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson's awkward visit to pay his respects. Indeed, by the time George Washington died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to teach us.



Whereas Washington believed in the rule of traditional elites like the Virginia gentry, Jefferson preferred what we would call a meritocratic approach, by which elites would be elected on the basis of education and skills. And while Washington emphasized a need for strong central government, Jefferson favored diffusion of power across the states. Still, as Francis Cogliano argues, common convictions equally defined their relationship: a passion for American independence and republican government, as well as a commitment to westward expansion and the power of commerce. They also both evolved a skeptical view of slavery, eventually growing to question the institution, even as they took limited steps to abolish it.



A Revolutionary Friendship captures the dramatic, challenging, and poignant reality that there was no single founding ideal-only compromise between friends and sometime rivals.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

12/04/2023

Historian Cogliano (Emperor of Liberty) considers the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in this measured and clarifying account. Analyzing the Virginians’ earlier lives as planters and slaveholders and their wartime careers, Cogliano shows that the two “were in broad agreement about the aims and objectives of the resistance movement in Virginia” from roughly 1769 until the war ended in 1783. Afterward, Washington and Jefferson “became political confidants,” whose shared commitments included “the process of Native displacement.” During Washington’s first presidential administration, he chose Jefferson as his secretary of state. But Washington and Jefferson drifted apart, with disagreement over the root causes of the Whiskey Rebellion contributing to their “estrangement.” In the polarizing 1790s, as their political opposition solidified, their friendship “crumbled.” (However, Jefferson minimized their feud after Washington died, leading Cogliano to suggest that “in death the men achieved the reconciliation that had eluded them in life.”) Among other intriguing details, Cogliano pinpoints the 1779 capture of the British governor of Detroit, an event with little influence on the war, as the moment that brought the two men into close correspondence for the first time. This deeply researched and accessible narrative sheds new light on a consequential friendship. (Feb.)

Wall Street Journal - William Anthony Hay

Shows how [Washington and Jefferson] in different ways, struggled with moral hypocrisy—the conflict between their lofty ideals and the fact that their elevated social positions depended on slave labor. They both sought a republic of liberty in America but disagreed over what it should look like. As we know too well today, friendships become fragile when political differences are unbridgeable.

Woody Holton

A fantastic work of comparative history. Washington and Jefferson’s collaboration endured for three highly productive decades, but then, as now, even the warmest friendships sometimes got pulverized by politics. Cogliano’s poignant reminder that Washington and Jefferson never reconciled inspires me, as it may you, to try to rebuild bridges.

Peter S. Onuf

A persuasively argued, well-written biography that illuminates and enlivens its subjects and their relationship. Avoiding the pitfalls of both the celebratory national narrative and its revisionist counterpoint, Cogliano enables readers to make better sense of the complicated circumstances—and complicated people—who revolutionized America, for better and for worse.

Eliga H. Gould

Superb, compelling history. Deftly interweaving the personal and the political, Cogliano shows that Washington and Jefferson had a much closer relationship than is typically acknowledged, first as political allies, then as trusted friends and confidants, but the party strife of the young republic made them bitter opponents.

Annette Gordon-Reed

It is hard to believe no one has written a detailed account of the difficult friendship between the two Virginian revolutionaries George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. We now have Cogliano’s meticulously researched, insightful, and fluidly written account of their history with each other. This book is just what we need as we approach the 250th anniversary of what these two men helped put in motion, the American Revolution.

New York Sun - Carl Rollyson

Perhaps the most profound feature of Mr. Cogliano’s book is his treatment of how Washington and Jefferson developed their anti-slavery positions without ever, in fact, freeing their slaves while the two men were alive…[his] method is another vindication of Plutarch’s understanding of what is to be gained by juxtaposing one biography against another. The balance Mr. Cogliano maintains between the personalities and politics of Washington and Jefferson is pitch perfect.

Eliga Gould

Superb, compelling history. Deftly interweaving the personal and the political, Cogliano shows that Washington and Jefferson had a much closer relationship than is typically acknowledged, first as political allies, then as trusted friends and confidants, but the party strife of the young republic made them bitter opponents.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192650806
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	06/25/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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