The Founding of the USA. Analysis of Terry Bouton's book "Taming Democracy".

by skannet (student)

Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy

The founding fathers of the Revolution did not have the best intentions of forging a great system of Democracy in the United States of America.

Majority of the book is set in Pennsylvania and meticulously details a lot of the struggles and challenges the founding fathers as well as the common man faced in that era. Faced with issues such as popular governments, public administration and financial investments, the author paints vivid pictures of the efforts of the founding fathers to stifle democracy as we know it today. Traditionally, students of government and history have been made to believe that the greatest contributors to the powerful society we have today as it concerns politics and interpersonal human interactions were the founding fathers. This book tends to prove otherwise. The reader is taken on a journey to see how despite their lofty ideas, the ‘Revolutionalists’ tended to be elitists who believed in stifling certain classes of the society in order to maintain their stranglehold on them. They passed certain political and fiscal laws to ensure that they remained relevant in the scheme of things. The rich were supposed to stay rich while the ‘have-nots’ were not given much of an opportunity to climb up the social ladder. It also chronicles the importance of the peasants such as farmers and how they shaped the society at the time. Civil disturbances were seen as rebellious and ephemeral, and as such were not given much of a look-in until they metamorphosed into civil disobedience. The book reveals a unique perception, depicting very clearly how the war and the events that ensued affected the working class in America. The author also introduced us to the real heroes during the same timeframe-farmers, carpenters, and tailors who put their lives on hold to fight to instill democracy and popular rule against the wishes of the bourgeois. It also portrays real characters from the Revolution such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, as genuinely imperfect people, only interested in what they were personally entitled to.

The tone of the novel is largely factual and unbiased. It lets the reader make up his mind based on the evidence provided by Bouton from the events that occurred during that era. In certain chapters it points out the advantages and disadvantages of both sides of the spectrum regarding monetary policies and systems of public administration. It’s structured to give the reader something to look forward to in the next chapter and gets their uninterrupted attention.

Bouton also tries to illustrate how the monetary policy adopted by the elite and Robert Morris almost cost the Army the war ...

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Bouton also tries to illustrate how the monetary policy adopted by the elite and Robert Morris almost cost the Army the war during the Revolutionary period. This was illustrated in Diary, Feb. 18, 1782, Morris Papers vol. 4, 249; Morris to Edward Carrington…. Military contractors whose responsibility it was to provide the army with horses and ammunition could no longer fulfill their contractual obligations as a result of the lack of payment from the government. This makes sufficient sense because the fiscal policies implemented by Morris and his cohorts did not support huge financial obligations which was a direct fault of the monetary cap of $400,000. This fact does a good job of convincing the reader that the founding fathers had ulterior motives when it came to the enrichment of the general populace because the scheme was laced with greed and obvious need for personal aggrandizement.

In addition, the issue raised in chapter nine about the desperate opposition to the new order illustrated in Robert Blaine to James Hamilton, n.d., folder 1, box 33, James Hamilton Papers; Aug. and Nov. 1788 aptly describes the extent to which civil disobedience was used to prove a point to the elite that their policies were unpopular. Bouton portrayed the elite for majority of the book as a group of rich, white men who had little or no interest in social equality so the protests where the road and other public facilities were vandalized were testament to the fact that the middle and lower class of the society were desperate for a popular government dictated by the wishes of the majority. I agree with the author’s analogy that it was a case of the community vs the ruling class so the evidence used was valid in this case.

I like the book because it goes really in-depth at explaining issues that still matter to contemporary America today which shows us the genesis of those issues and how far we have come in solving certain problems. It also seems to discredit the notion we have that the founding fathers were perfect and made decisions that all benefited the society. They were great men with lofty ideas, but they were not infallible. They made mistakes just like present day politicians do and that shows that our society will forever evolve. This makes it inevitable that the middle class must always look out for its best interest in whatever way it can legally and constitutionally.

The Founding of the USA. Analysis of Terry Bouton's book "Taming Democracy".

This is a preview of the whole essay

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