FISHER AMES CHRISTIAN FOUNDING FATHER & FEDERALIST

Historian Knudsen explores the distinctly Christian roots of a seminal politician of the Early Republic era.

Fisher Ames was among the most important Federalists of the late 18th century. As the author highlights in this biography, he was not only one of the nation’s most vocal proponents of the ratification of the Constitution but also personally drafted the framework for what became the First Amendment. He also believed that “Christianity could thrive if freed from civil regulation,” Knudsen writes, and that denominational sectarianism would thereafter be replaced by “freedom of choice.” Ames would also play an important role as a congressman from Massachusetts in advocating for important Federalist causes, particularly his impassioned defense of the Jay Treaty. This detailed chronological account surveys its subject’s life from his upbringing as the son of a prominent colonial physician and almanac publisher through his religious life, Harvard University education, and career as an up-and-coming lawyer. Although the details of Ames’ life have been well documented before, this book does an admirable job of providing a thorough survey of his personal values, political beliefs, and major accomplishments. It’s accompanied by dozens of drawings, illustrations, reproductions of primary sources, and other visual elements that make it more accessible. The biography prioritizes archival research with more than 1,000 footnotes and a bibliography of more than 50 pages. The book falls flat, however, when it engages in modern-day culture wars, which serve to take the spotlight away from Ames’ story, rather than enhance it. A preface and introductory essay, for instance, deride the educational background of today’s public schoolteachers and shoehorn Ames into the contemporary, ahistorical political category of a “foundational American Conservative.” The book also unconvincingly argues that “we [are] taught to ignore what is written in the Constitution and the historical context behind it.”

A well-researched biography that’s skewed by 21st-century political framing.