Present vs. Hindsight Theme Analysis

Early on in Founding Brothers, Ellis emphasizes that the events leading up to and following the American Revolution can, from our present-day position, seem like they were destined to happen. In hindsight, we know that the Revolution was ultimately a success, that the republic both survived and thrived, and that the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution continue to shape America today. However, all of this was unclear at the time. The Founding Fathers had no idea if the American experiment would turn out to be successful, and much of what was occurring around them was also unknown to them due to misinformation, rumor, and the simple problem of not witnessing everything first-hand. Ellis endeavors to explain how the events following the Revolution appeared to those living them at the time, rather than presenting them only from the position of hindsight. In doing so, he suggests that even though we have far more knowledge about these events now than anyone did back then, there is also a special advantage to the perspective of those alive at the time. Some truths conveyed in the present are not available to those viewing the situation in hindsight. 

There are many ways in which hindsight improves our knowledge of historical events. Thanks to the work of historians, we now have a comprehensive picture of the events surrounding the birth of the American republic. We know, for example, that meetings about the issue of slavery or the location of the nation’s capital occurred in secret. We also have insight into private correspondence, revealing the inner thoughts and feelings of the major historical actors under consideration. In this sense, hindsight strengthens our understanding by revealing information that was kept hidden at the time.

Another way in which hindsight strengthens our knowledge is due to the fact that we know the consequences of events in the past. As Ellis explains: “What is familiar history for us, however, was still the unknown future for them.” We know, for example, that the Founding Fathers’ decision to “table” the issue of slavery did not resolve or mitigate the problem, but rather led to an enormous amount of suffering and, eventually, to the Civil War. Ellis argues: “Hindsight permits us to listen to the debate of 1790 with knowledge that none of the participants possessed. For we know full well what they could perceive dimly, if at all—namely, that slavery would come to be the central and defining problem for the next seventy years of American history.” Indeed, hindsight tells us that not only did the slavery problem not disappear, the legacy of slavery and related racial tensions continue to shape life in America over 200 years later in the present.

At the same time, Ellis is careful to avoid giving credence to the cliché that “hindsight is 20/20” (meaning that hindsight shows us the complete, accurate version of an event). While hindsight often produces an abundance of information from which the truth can be deduced, in other cases too little information or conflicting evidence further obscures the truth within our contemporary perspective. For example, Ellis emphasizes that little is known about what happened in the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, despite it being one of the most famous events in early American history. Rather than picking one interpretation of events and filling in the gaps to construct a full narrative, Ellis presents another, different interpretation of what occurred during the duel, with commentary about which version is more likely to be accurate and why. This reminds us that hindsight is not “20/20” but often severely limited, and there is much that we will simply never be able to know about the past.

Hindsight can also corrupt our understanding of historical events due to the tendency to romanticize these events and fit them into a neat, coherent narrative. In correspondence with Benjamin Rush, John Adams expresses suspicions over the historical narrative of the American Revolution that romanticized events that were in reality “desperately contested and highly problematic occasions.” He emphasizes the authority of his own, “deconstructed” account because he was “present at the creation [of the republic].” Adams was also critical of the romanticized portrayal of the Founding Fathers and other leaders as heroes, which may make us question the depiction of these figures in Founding Brothers itself.

Not only can hindsight make us produce romanticized narratives, but it can also lead us to distort the past by imposing our own contemporary perspective and values onto it. Ellis argues that George Washington’s Farewell Address has come to mean many different things over time, but “unless one believes that ideas are like migratory birds that can fly unchanged from one century to the next, the only way to grasp the authentic meaning of his message is to recover the context out of which it emerged.” For this reason, Founding Brothers provides the original context such that we can get as close to Washington’s original meaning as possible—even if interpreting it from a contemporary perspective is difficult to fully escape.