For Fear of an Elective King
George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789
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For Fear of an Elective King
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Narrated by:
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Pamela Wolken
About this listen
In the spring of 1789, within weeks of the establishment of the new federal government based on the US Constitution, the Senate and House of Representatives fell into dispute regarding how to address the president. Congress, the press, and individuals debated more than 30 titles, many of which had royal associations and some of which were clearly monarchical. For Fear of an Elective King is Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon's rich account of the title controversy and its meanings.
The short, intense legislative phase and the prolonged, equally intense public phase animated and shaped the new nation's broadening political community. Rather than simply reflecting an obsession with etiquette, the question challenged Americans to find an acceptable balance between power and the people's sovereignty while assuring the country's place in the Atlantic world. Bartoloni-Tuazon argues that the resolution of the controversy in favor of the modest title of "President" established the importance of recognition of the people's views by the president and evidence of modesty in the presidency, an approach to leadership that fledged the presidency's power by not flaunting it.
This book is published by Cornell University Press.
©2014 Cornell University Press (P)2017 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 250
George Washington's Farewell Address was a prophetic letter from a "parting friend" to his fellow citizens about the forces he feared could destroy our democracy: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, and foreign wars. Once celebrated as civic scripture, more widely reprinted than the Declaration of Independence, the Farewell Address is now almost forgotten. Its message remains starkly relevant. In Washington's Farewell, John Avlon offers a stunning portrait of our first president and his battle to save America from self-destruction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very well written and performed
- By Michael Reading on 03-02-17
By: John Avlon
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Agony and Eloquence
- John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and a World of Revolution
- By: Daniel L. Mallock
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
The drama of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson is the foundational story of America - courage, loyalty, hope, fanaticism, greatness, failure, forgiveness, love. Agony and Eloquence is the story of the greatest friendship in American history and the revolutionary times in which it was made, ruined, and finally renewed. In the wake of Washington's retirement, longtime friends Thomas Jefferson and John Adams came to represent the opposing political forces struggling to shape America's future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Listen
- By Kyle B. on 03-12-21
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The Birth of Modern Politics
- Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828
- By: Lynn Hudson Parson
- Narrated by: Milton Bagby
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
The 1828 presidential election, which pitted Major General Andrew Jackson against incumbent John Quincy Adams, has long been hailed as a watershed moment in American political history. It was the contest in which an unlettered, hot-tempered southwestern frontiersman, trumpeted by his supporters as a genuine man of the people, soundly defeated a New England "aristocrat" whose education and political resume were as impressive as any ever seen in American public life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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a very good popular history book
- By D. Littman on 01-29-10
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Friends Divided
- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 399
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 397
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Great Read
- By Jean on 12-22-17
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Founding Brothers
- The Revolutionary Generation (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 904
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 802
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 800
An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic - John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great!
- By Gotta Tellya on 08-10-16
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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Plain, Honest Men
- The Making of the American Constitution
- By: Richard Beeman
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 19 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 213
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
The Constitutional Convention affected nothing less than a revolution in the nature of the American government. Led by James Madison, a small cohort of delegates devised a plan that would radically alter the balance of power between state and national governments, and then sprung that idea on a largely unsuspecting convention.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grand Narrative
- By Maddie49 on 10-12-11
By: Richard Beeman
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American Sphinx
- The Character of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Susan O'Malley
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight. Historian Joseph J. Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today "hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams".
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3 out of 5 stars
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So: they did the DNA and … time to change appendix
- By Jamanosa on 11-03-21
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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Profiles in Courage
- By: John F. Kennedy
- Narrated by: John F. Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,045
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 915
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 911
During 1954-1955, John F. Kennedy, then a US senator, chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, Profiles in Courage - now reissued, featuring a new introduction by Caroline Kennedy as well as Robert Kennedy's foreword written for the memorial edition of the volume in 1964 - resounds with timeless lessons.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Abridged
- By Tom R on 01-04-17
By: John F. Kennedy
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The Three Lives of James Madison
- Genius, Partisan, President
- By: Noah Feldman
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 34 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 528
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 470
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 468
Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician, he cofounded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cogently organized, meticulously balanced
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 06-15-18
By: Noah Feldman
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Inventing a Nation
- Washington, Adams, Jefferson
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht, Gore Vidal
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 326
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 159
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Story4 out of 5 stars 161
Volumes have been written about George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but no previous work captures the intimate and vital details the way Inventing a Nation does. Vidal's consummate skill takes you into the minds and private rooms of these great men, illuminating their opinions of one another and their concerns about crafting a workable democracy.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Reader Beware: Mixed with a political agenda
- By Robert on 09-09-04
By: Gore Vidal
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Washington and Hamilton
- The Alliance That Forged America
- By: Stephen F. Knott, Tony Williams
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
In the wake of the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers faced a daunting task: overcome their competing visions to build a new nation, the likes of which the world had never seen. Washington and Hamilton chronicles the unlikely collaboration between two conflicting characters working together to protect their hard-won freedoms. Yet while Washington and Hamilton's different personalities often led to fruitful collaboration, their conflicting ideals also tested the boundaries of their relationship - and threatened the future of the new republic.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Biography
- By Emily on 06-14-18
By: Stephen F. Knott, and others
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A Country of Vast Designs
- James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent
- By: Robert W. Merry
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 18 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 536
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 439
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 441
When James K. Polk was elected president in 1844, the United States was locked in a bitter diplomatic struggle with Britain over the rich lands of the Oregon Territory, which included what is now Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Texas, not yet part of the Union, was threatened by a more powerful Mexico. And the territories north and west of Texas---what would become California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Colorado---belonged to Mexico.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Decent Overview of Polk's Presidency
- By James on 06-20-10
By: Robert W. Merry
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Samuel Adams
- A Life
- By: Ira Stoll
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Ira Stoll's fascinating biography not only restores this figure to his rightful place in history but portrays him as a man of God whose skepticism of a powerful central government, uncompromising support for freedom of the press, concern about the influence of money on elections, voluble love of liberty, and selfless endurance in a war for freedom has enormous relevance to Americans today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not just a biography. Must-read American History!
- By scott bowlby on 01-15-11
By: Ira Stoll
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Thomas Jefferson
- By: R. B. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone, describing himself simply as "Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia". It is in this simple epitaph that R. B. Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder - not as a great political figure, but as leader of "a revolution of ideas that would make the world over again". In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the definitive short biography of this revered American - the first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into a swift, insightful, evenhanded account.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
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Patrick Henry
- Champion of Liberty
- By: Jon Kukla
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and a planter and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was reelected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Long awaited biography of Patrick Henry
- By GallowsJudge on 11-18-17
By: Jon Kukla