THE FOUNDERS' FORTUNES

A detailed look at the economic roots of the American Revolution and the early republic.

Randall, the prizewinning expert on the founding era, focuses on a handful of key figures, including Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams, and Robert Morris, perhaps the wealthiest American of his time. For many of them, especially Franklin and Washington, the possibility of acquiring large tracts of unclaimed land to the west of the original Colonies was a key to building wealth. However, British interests saw the possible settlement of the interior as a loosening of the mother country’s economic and political control, and therein lay the seeds of conflict. Other policies—e.g., requirements that goods shipped to England be carried by English ships with English crews—also stifled Colonial enterprise. With the accession of King George III in 1761, a determination emerged to make the Colonies more profitable so as to pay off the massive bills the empire faced after the Seven Years’ War with France. Randall deftly follows these currents as they played out in the lives of the key founders, with numerous ups and downs for each of them during the war. Most felt the impact of post-Revolutionary inflation and other economic ills that led to the creation of the Constitution, largely at the hands of Hamilton, the economic mastermind of the era. Randall also discusses the impact of slavery on the decisions of the founders—notably, the infamous three-fifths clause, which “assured that slaveholding states would control the House of Representatives.” Like Randall’s previous works, especially Unshackling America, the narrative is well written and packed with human interest, providing a valuable update to the Revolutionary-era history many readers may not have studied since high school.

A vivid history of how America paid for its Revolution and why the Founding Fathers made the decisions they did.