"No future session of Congress will ever have so arduous and weighty a
charge on their hands," the New York Gazette observed in summer 1789.
"No examples to imitate, and no striking historical facts on which to
ground their decisions--All is bare creation." The constitution had been
written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But 1789 was the year the
government it described--albeit only in the broadest of terms--had to be
brought into being. 1789: The Founders Create America draws on hundreds
of sources to paint a vivid portrait of the new nation, setting out to
show the world at large that a new--and very American--form of
government was calling itself into being. Veteran journalist Thomas B.
Allen brings decades of experience and a gifted storyteller's eye to the
long-hidden history of how George Washington and the other Founders set
the Federal government into motion.