This thing took me forever to slog through. Like, MONTHS. Okay, years. TWO YEARS. I downloaded it from NetGalley on March 16th, 2016. I don't know why, it was such an interesting topic but MAN! And I think the problem in the last few months is the fact that I am so burned out on Revolutionary War/Early government texts, that I just could not get into it once I took a break. Full review to come. Maybe.

****As per all of my reviews, I like to preface by saying that I listened to this book in audiobook format. This does indeed slightly skew my rating. I have found that audiobooks, give me a better "relationship" with the characters if done well, but also kills the book for me if narrated poorly. Also due to the nature of listening to the text, names and places may be spelled incorrectly here as I often do not have the physical volume in front of me.
Also, I have written this review in a "rolling updates" style. In that I basically chronicle my reading as I progress. This may make for a jarring and spoilery review so be warned.*****


So in this, hmm how should I put it.., 'intense' political climate that we live in, I think it's a very good idea to take this moment and sort of give in to some self-reflection. We often lose ourselves in the current battle in the political arena, dig our heels in to our preferred parties and duke it out in a slugfest to the death. I have mentioned this before but I really believe that there's a real danger to political parties. I'll touch on this later, but I wanted to give my thoughts on First Congress and why reading such a book and not necessarily this specific one, is a really beneficial idea that gives us all the opportunity to get some insight and reflection into just why things are put into place as they are.

The Great Experiment
I think we all need to keep this in mind… The United States is biggest experiment the world has known. At it's formation is wasn't sure (and didn't look likely) that was going to work smoothly or as planned. What I love about the book is that it starts you off with a very light coat of back story, but sort of delves right to the meat and potatoes. It starts roughly around 1777 and basically sticks to the first 10 or so years that spanned the creation of the Articles of Confederation, ratification, the idea of Slavery as part of the constiution, etc..

Admittedly I think the book, especially the audio recording, loses you a bit with the fluery of names being tossed about. But that being said, it is managable, as many here are well known 'actors' in our political drama. The book does a good job in providing explanations, but it sometimes assumes knowledge that the reader may not have or, glosses over some facts. But this is few and far between, most idea's are laid out rather well, such as the idea of Madison's views vs Hamiltons, the budget and monetary hellhole that we started off with. I was hoping that we'd get a weightier sense of drama and implications by the battles we hear described. Unfortunately this isn't really trumped up. The book tackles some of the biggest challenges such as the problem with even broaching the subject of slavery before all the states were 'onboard'… But at the end we don't really get a nice 'bow on it' type writing. And because this is actual historical non-fiction, I know its' very very hard to do such a thing without adding fake, gossipy, emotions that weren't based in fact. I suppose it would be nice though to have these challenges and problems that the early US faced, more clear cut. The chapters and themes of the chapters aren't really clearly defined and I found that they bled into each other a lot. It would have been great to have say, Part I Chapters 1-4 on the challenge of trying to gather the states to agree to radify rather than stick with the A.o.C etc..

The book while it does hold interest it does sometimes drift a bit and often atleast for me, I find my mind wandering. What's neat is that sometimes the author delves into the actual quality of life, and style of living of the colonies. I actually would have loved to hear a bit more of this… But sometimes it seems to get a bit too deep in the weeds of political back and forth that granted…is a very hard topic to keep interesting 100% of the time.
I enjoyed this, I was hoping it would have laid out the struggle a bit more in layman's terms, but I think Bordewich does a standup job.

The book also does a swell job in relating the view points and sort of split down the middle in terms of the federalist and anti-federalist ideals. Also I liked that he did indeed give us some background into just *why* the A.o.E would have led to far more disjointed and not unified nation.

Getting back to the more current philosophical nature… Giving ourselves a deeper look back into our history, I think is pretty vital. Just claiming that "This president is stupid" and not having any inkling as to why things are in place, doesn't work as a defense. There's not a lot of good to be had to rail about a current adminstration or law or anything if you can't place the context of which it came from. And trust me I am no historian… but before I lash out and air my dismay I try to look back and think about the path of how we got here. The book First Congress does an absolutely fantastic job in showing us two sides to the arguments. I couldn't detect any real bias that would be surely put in if this were presented as a news documentary or piece. Both sides have their point of view. Even for topics like how to tackle the staggering about of debt, were laid out on an even keel.

Coming away from the book, I think it succeeded in many places, I would have liked to see more written for a fundamental knowledge base. Perhaps more analogies, more detailed looks at characters and their stances etc. and again I can probably chalk a lot of this up to it being audio and listened to while I am multitasking. I enjoyed it, I think I'd like to see MucClough do something like this. It's a time in history that may be a bit overlooked honestly. The struggle to pull the country up from it's bootstraps isn't really a battle that is well known. But I like the idea that there was basically a big "Well...what do we do now?" moment at the end of 1776... Even at the end of the First Congress, we see that a ton of issues had to get tossed to the "next generation" since there just was not enough time to hear all the needed issues. The idea that our government, and way of life really, was formed with the idea of keeping power limited and making sure that the power remained with the people is just so brilliant. While looking back now, from 2019, It's hard to say that this idea has the same weight that it did then. I don't think if you ask the average person, how much power do they have in the political grand scheme of things, you would get an answer that would be what the Founders would have wanted to hear. Even our beloved Congress, and it's famous bi-cameral houses which now seem to be a gaggle of bitter, entrenched groups that relate more to general party idea's instead of who they represent... The book while whatever it doesn't expound upon provides are good jumping off point to do research into whatever is skipped over in the book

Book 4 of 40 for 2016

The Constitutional Convention created the framework for the government but the making of the Constitution into a working government was done my the First Congress. Which is the subject of Fergus Bordewich excellent new book.

The First Congress created the Executive Departments, the judiciary, and the Bill of Rights. In addition it laid the foundation for how Congress functions to this day.

We see the beginnings of compromise driving legislation in determining the new location of the capital. We see the creation of the Treasure Department by Hamilton along with his laying the foundation for our financial systems.

We see Madison in the first session of the First Congress acting as a majority leader in the House working and pushing legislation through but as time passes we see the Congressman begin to push back and begin to factionalism take its place in the House.

We see John Adams as President of the Senate totally miserable and a Senate that meets behind closed doors and does not keep a record of its proceedings. Bordewich depends upon members letters and dairies to piece together the debates of the upper chamber.

We also see Washington develop his role as Chief Executive and how to work with Congress. We see Washington over the course of this First Congress switch allegiances from Madison to Hamilton as debates over the finances of the nation would be handled.

In light of the current struggles of the 114th Congress Bordewich provides a great and concise history of how Congress started and how its early days still impact how the Congress works today.

I highly recommend it.

As someone predisposed to liking just about any book on the Federalist period, I was not disappointed in this book. Bordewich does a very good job in bringing alive a topic that could be very dry and is surprisingly hard to find documentation about.

When the First Congress under the Constitution met in New York City in 1789, it did not get off to a fast start. It took a few weeks for enough people to show up to have a quorum. No one was quite sure when George Washington would show up to be sworn in as President (John Adams was already on the job as Vice President). Nobody really knew what to do.

Thankfully, James Madison was in the House of Representatives at the time. He was the man with an idea of what to do and got things going. (He was not the first Speaker of the House, that was Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania and he really didn't do much.)

The First Congress had a lot of things to do, such as, come up with a Bill of Rights, set up the Judiciary, figure out what to call the President (this was a big deal), pick a site for the capital, and figure out how to finance the new government. The last task proved to be the most contentious and it ended up giving us political parties.

My favorite anecdote in the book was President Washington walking over to the Senate, arriving unannounced, and demanding to know who didn't approve of one of his appointees. It was a Georgia senator who had blocked that nomination. Presidents do that anymore, but it would be fun to seem them try it again.

It’s an interesting story and seems to be well researched, but to me it was a rather dull read.

It's good to be reminded how much the founding fathers were just making sh*t up at they went along, because they had no fricking clue how their new, independent country was going to work, especially because it was just as hard to get a consensus then as it is now. So many of the precedents and institutions that seem set in stone now were so hotly debated then, and the author does a good job of reminding readers of that fact. The major players are all given time (even in a fairly short book), and while a good chunk of what what the author details about the various debates in the Senate come from William Maclay's diary, other sources allow for more balance.

Speaking of balance, the author didn't quite get away with a totally unbiased account- I get the impression that he's a fan of James Madison, seriously dislikes John Adams, and that he reluctantly appreciates Alexander Hamilton's skills.

All around, an enjoyable book, though definitely one that falls more on the side of pop history than scholarly work.

A look at the main actors of the first Congress of the United States and the issues they faced, from the national debt and foreign relations to setting up the government and handling the peculiar issue of slavery.