To save the newly United States, a brilliant but tortured Founding Father wrestles with family history and his own conscience while persuading a former slave to help sabotage the abolition of slavery.
Inspired by Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers, this historical suspense takes you inside the backrooms where James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington struck their devil’s bargain to found the United States of America and cement their political ambitions. At what price comes Greatness?
The Story
It’s 1790 in the City of New York, and the First Congress of the United States, under its new Constitution, is in session. For Representative James Madison of Virginia, the frail, arrogant and diminutive genius who is its de facto author, this should be a moment of triumph. But Madison has a wealth of worries to contend with. The Constitution has yet to be ratified by all the states, there is a Bill of Rights he must compose, the newly minted country is woefully deep in war debt, and worst of all is his declining health. READ MORE
My Love of American History
James Madison, 4th American President, plays a leading role in Blow Out the Light. I first encountered serious American history in my second year of college. California State University, East Bay offered a two semester American History class. The main text for this two-part class was the almost 700 page “Notes Of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison.” Madison came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” for the leadership role he took at the Convention. He worked hard to prepare himself. This included contacting his friend and fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as the American Minister to France, and asking him for a recommendation of the books he should read to prepare himself....
Could Slavery Have Been Abolished by the New Federal Congress?
When in 1789 the first Federal Congress was called to order, slavery was not supposed to have been on the agenda. James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” had worked hard to keep this divisive issue out of sight. One Madison compromise was passing the constitution with a provision barring Congress from regulating the slave trade for 20 years, until 1808. Imagine the surprise of most members of Congress when groups of abolitionists submitted petitions calling on them to address the issue of slavery. Most of these petitions were submitted by Quaker organizations who argued that regulating the slave trade was different than abolishing it. Benjamin Franklin, who was a “Founding Father” for his service on the 1787 Constitutional...