I first read John C. Miller's history of the Federalist some fifty years ago when an undergraduate. I was thoroughly impressed with Miller's account of the first twelve years under the Constitution covering the two terms of George Washington's presidency and the single term of John Adams. Upon rereading The Federalist Era my opinion has not changed. This is a comprehensive, judicious, non-partisan history - an example of academic history at its finest.

The story of the Federalist Era is populated, as you would expect by the usual suspects: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Edmund Randolph, Timothy Pickering, Oliver Wolcott, John Jay, John Marshall, James Monroe, Tom Paine, Albert Gallatin and Aaron Burr. Supporting actors include, most famously Citizen Genet, the "diplomat" representing the republic birthed by the French Revolution, who was the inspiration for the Alien half of the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts.

The plot, if you will, is a nearly uninterrupted series of crises, economic and political that threatened the existence of the Union and might have sunk the new regime if not for the leadership of Washington and Adams and the brilliance of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

Washinton's first term featured the rupture between Hamilton and the Speaker of the House, James Madison, Hamilton's erstwhile political ally in the battle to secure the adoption of the Constitution mainly through their partnership in the authoring of The Federalist Papers. Hamilton's reports on the Public Credit, the Bank of the United States and the Report on Manufactures were arguably the inspiration for the split among the Founders into the Federalist and Republican political parties.

The divide between the adherents of the government in particular Hamilton and the adherents of Secretary of State Jefferson and Madison spawned a battle conducted in a nascent press whose opinions were generally bought and paid for by the parties. Both Hamilton and Madison fought each under in the papers using aliases similar to Publius the "author" of the Federalist. The editors of the partisan press conducted their campaigns with a viciousness that would cause the algorithms of today's social media opinion gatekeepers to crash and burn. Probably the most extreme example of the vitriol was offered by Benjamin Bache in 1797 in the Philadelphia Aurora when he called Washington:

"...the source of all the misfortunes of our country...If ever there was a period for rejoicing", he continued, "this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington from this day ceases to give a currency to political iniquity and to legalized corruption". Miller follows the Bache quote with the following. "The President was even accused of having been a secret traitor during the War of American Independence."

Bache, by the way, was the grandson of Bejamin Franklin. It could be argued that he was the inspiration for the Sedition half of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In fact, as Miller points out in a footnote Bache was charged with libeling President Adams under a state law. (He died of yellow fever before the trial took place.)

Miller deftly takes the readers through the battle between Hamilton and Jefferson in Washington's cabinet, the back door "spies" for Hamilton in Adams' cabinet (Wolcott and Pickering, secretaries of Treasury and State), the horse trading between Hamilton and Jefferson/Madison to enact the formation of the Bank of the United States in return for a guarantee to relocate the capital from Philadelphia to a
a new city to be built on the banks of the Potomac River.

The foreign policy of Washington and Adams is on balance credited with competently navigating the threats to American integrity and perhaps independence arising out of the impact of the French Revolution on our politics. The Jay Treaty, the XYZ affair, the Genet Affair, the undeclared Naval War with France, the challenges to westward expansion due to the continued British occupation of forts that they were obligated to vacated under the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 are all narrated judiciously by Miller without any undue partisanship on his part. He offers a balanced account of the ill-fated Whiskey Rebellion giving the views rebel farmers of western Pennsylvania's position a an equal hearing with position of Washington and Hamilton.

The Federalist Era is a fascinating story and Miller is an excellent historian. One of the bonuses of this work is an extensive bibliography that consists of essays for each chapter reviewing all of the primary and secondary sources not just a list in alphabetical order of works cited.

I recommend The Federalist Era for any general reader and especially for any reader of history with an interest in the Founding that isn't a disguised argument for a particular position in our current day political and cultural wars. ( )