Clouds of doom shrouded the nation in 1800. George Washington was dead.
For the first time in their twenty-five-year struggle to govern themselves, Americans faced a future without the father of their country to lead them. And they lost their way.
Absent their commander-in-chief, the men who had helped him lead the nation to independence went mad. Chaos engulfed the land as surviving Founding Fathers Adams, Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, Monroe, and others turned on each other as they clawed at Washington’s fallen mantle.
In a drama not unlike a classical Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, arrogance and lust for power gripped the souls of national heroes, perverting their patriotism, spurring them to spring on each other, fangs bared, spitting venom. Defying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution they had written and sworn to uphold, they ignored the commandments their religions demanded they obey. Madness swept them into its arms, with congressmen wrestling each other to the floor of the House, pummeling each other. Former battlefield comrades and close friends challenged each other to deadly duels, and high government officials plotted to disgrace, imprison, or murder those they perceived as political foes.
