Many people would be surprised to learn that the struggle between Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party defined-and jeopardized-the political life of the early American republic. America on the Brink looks at why the Federalists, who worked so hard to consolidate the federal government before 1800, went to great lengths to subvert it after Jefferson's election. In addition to taking the side of the British in the diplomatic dance before the war, the Federalists did everything they could to impede the prosecution of the war, even threatening the Madison Administration with a separate peace for New England in 1814. Readers fascinated by the world of the Founding Fathers will come away from this riveting account with a new appreciation for how close the new nation came to falling apart almost fifty years before the Civil War.
"There is much here to reward amateur historians and casual readers . . . captures such men as Josiah Quincy, Harrison Gray Otis, James Madison and James Monroe vividly."
Publisher's Weekly
"Buel's analysis, rich in detail, adds a provocative edge to our understanding of this war."
American Historical Review
"The founding generation feared partisan conflict, and Richard Buel shows why. No previous writer has so persuasively illuminated the inextricable connections between divisions over foreign policy and partisan political alignments during a period of revolutionary instability and change throughout the Atlantic world. After Jefferson's election, Federalists who had struggled so hard to secure the success of the American experiment during the 1790s jeopardized the union's survival as they sought to regain power on the national level and preserve their tenuous control in New England. America on the Brink is an important contribution to our understanding of the founding of the American federal republic. Buel's fine book represents political history at its very best."
