This meticulously researched book, Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders, is a myth killer. While Americans revere the Constitution, few have read it, and fewer still are aware of actual beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Dennis Rasmussen details the later years of the figures of that day: Washington, Hamilton, Adams and Jefferson, who all despaired of the future of America.
From Adams, a known curmudgeon, we might expect such, but heroes like Washington and Jefferson died doubting the nation they created would last much longer. The causes are eerily familiar: partisanship, foreign meddling, media dishonesty, election corruption and more that need no introduction. Also, Adams bewailed at length the lack of virtue in our citizens. The author lists the panoply of contemporaries who shared that pessimism.
The stories are surprising, humanizing and disconcerting. At the end, Rasmussen adds the sole figure who retained a hopeful vision of the nation — James Madison, a young founder who lived longer than the others. He was persuaded by the nation’s endurance through crisis after crisis in the first five decades.
Voices who speak with certainty about “what the founding fathers meant” display a historical amnesia this unsettling and reassuring book can alleviate.
