To be clear, I feel as if Ferling did a very good job describing these debates. He even gave adequate descriptions of the inherent conflict between the ideals of the Revolution and the commitment to holding men as chattel. Moreover, he described the historical divisions that would lead to the Civil War less than a century after the country's creation and that would foreshadow a social and economic conflict between the North and the South that would last well into the 20th century. However, while the book adequately describes these events, I find them so contrary to the idea of American liberty that those descriptions inevitably lead me to view the Founding Fathers as hypocrites. The more detailed the description, the more I cannot hide behind the idea that I am projecting modern morals and cannot expect them to have shared the same views that modern Americans have regarding slavery, because the debates about slavery make it very clear that these ideas were discussed at the nation's founding. Not only were they discussed, they were hotly debated by different factions. In fact, the prevailing arguments at the time did not deny the humanity of those in servitude, which became a later justification for slavery, but actually focused on their humanity, particularly in terms of determining population. Reading about this simply makes me angry, and was therefore, my least-favorite part of the book.
I do feel like Ferling did a very good job of supporting his central arguments. Reading his book, I do not feel like I can really lament the lack of civility in modern political discourse, because it appears...
Moreover, he does a fantastic job of helping explain how financial interests have helped drive what issues are considered serious moral problems. In fact, while I have had a difficult time understand the modern emphasis on female reproductive rights, when one looks at independent females as a threat to a male financial base that is feeling particularly threatened in the working-class during the modern recession, I understand that issue better than with any social-oriented perspective. I do not feel as if there is anything that Ferling omitted in the text, which he should have included. That does not mean that he provided a completely comprehensive overview of the time period and its impact on American politics, but does reflect that his knowledge of the American political process is vastly superior to mine, and I simply do not see any gaps.
Overall, I feel as if the book agrees with much of the other material I have read on the subject. There is nothing in Ferling's explanations that I feel is incompatible with other theories, even if he does not parrot what other authors have described about the period. After all, for an event as significant as the American Revolution, which involved so many people acting to further their own self-interests while also creating a new nation, to think that a single theory could completely describe the period is a naive and limited perspective.
References
Ferling, John. A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
