How does Ellis argue these collaborators shaped the history of the early republic?

Answer 1

Joseph J. Ellis, in his book The Founding Brothers, deemed James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Abigail Adams as two sets of Collaborators. In the chapter about them Ellis describes how Jefferson as the philosophical leader of the Republican party acted through James Madison to put into place many of the Republican or Anti-Federalist policies. Madisn and Jefferson collaborated in conspiratorial fashion to undermine President John Adams even while Jefferson was his vice-president. They managed to unseat Adams after he served only one term as president, thereby efectively eliminating the Federalist party and putting the country on the road to a more republican form of government, one that was more answerable to the general public than Jahn Adams thought it shoud be. John and Abigail Adams conferred with one another by correspondence about all orts of subjects, especially political ones. Adams did not trust most of his cabinet as most were still more loyal to Washington than to him. She supported him in almost every way and went further than he himself did in exerting executive authority. Adams signed into law the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts against his own will. He had many critics and Abigail even urged Adams to use his powers u nder those acts to expel foreign born persons who criticized his government even though it was clearly contrary to the First Amendment rights. Ellis shows there was much political machinations between Jefferson and Madison and that Jefferson was not the most honest of politicians when it came to getting his Republican policies implemented.