The American Story: Building The Republic - A review

I really enjoyed the first book in The American Story, series. It followed a clear, chronological storyline that made it easy to stay engaged and understand how events unfolded.

This book, however, was more difficult for me to follow. While it focuses on the early presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson, the structure often jumps backward in time within each section. When reading about one presidency, it frequently returns to events from earlier administrations, which made it difficult to follow the timeline and stay oriented.

One aspect I did appreciate was the emphasis on the personal faith of many of the founders. I found it especially interesting how the book addressed common claims about Jefferson, arguing that he was not a deist in the way he is often portrayed by modern historians. The detail about him attending church services held in the United States Capitol was particularly striking. I had never realized that the Capitol once hosted regular Sunday worship services. It is a powerful picture of how faith and public life intersected in the early years of the nation. 

At the same time, it is hard not to feel a sense of loss knowing that this is no longer practiced today. The book makes the argument that this still aligned with the idea of separation of church and state, which I found to be thought provoking.

Another major takeaway for me was seeing a different side of Jackson. The book highlights significant moral and leadership failures during his presidency. He was openly supportive of slavery and, at the time of his death, owned roughly 150 enslaved people at his plantation. Beyond his personal involvement, his policies helped enable the expansion of slavery by opening vast new lands in the South and West. His role in the Indian Removal Act forced Native Americans off their land, making millions of acres available for cotton cultivation, which directly strengthened and expanded the slave economy.

He also did not consistently protect individual rights, particularly for Native Americans, as seen when he refused to fully enforce rulings like those from Worcester v. Georgia. His opposition to the Second Bank of the United States led to him removing federal deposits and placing them into what became known as “pet banks,” which were state banks favored by his administration. This decision contributed to financial instability and is often linked to the economic issues that followed. He expanded executive power in ways that many argue undermined the balance between branches of government, and during the Nullification Crisis, his actions heightened tensions between federal authority and states’ rights.

Altogether, his leadership seemed to mark a shift away from the unity and restraint that earlier founders sought to model, and toward a more divided and partisan political environment.

Overall, while I appreciated many of the insights and perspectives the book offered, the non linear structure made it harder to follow than the first.