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Founding Fathers of the United States

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The Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Congress on June 28, 1776. Painting by John Trumbull. Trumbull's painting can also be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill.[1]

The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, and establishing the United States Constitution. Within the large group known as the "Founding Fathers", there are two key subsets: the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (who signed the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776) and the Framers of the Constitution (who were delegates to the Constitutional Convention and took part in framing or drafting the proposed Constitution of the United States). A further subset is the group that signed the Articles of Confederation.[2]

Some historians define the "Founding Fathers" to mean a larger group, including not only the Signers and the Framers but also all those who, whether as politicians, jurists, statesmen, soldiers, diplomats, or ordinary citizens, took part in winning American independence and creating the United States of America.[3] Historian Richard B. Morris in 1973 identified the following seven figures as the key Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.[4]

Warren G. Harding, then a Republican Senator from Ohio, coined the phrase "Founding Fathers" in his keynote address to the 1916 Republican National Convention. He used it several times thereafter, most prominently in his 1921 inaugural address as President of the United States.[5]

Background

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, by Howard Chandler Christy

The First Continental Congress, met briefly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1774 and consisted of fifty-six delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States of America. The delegates, who included George Washington, soon to command the army; Patrick Henry, and John Adams, were elected by their respective colonial assemblies. Other notable delegates included Samuel Adams from Massachusetts, John Dickinson from Pennsylvania and New York's John Jay. This congress in addition to formulating appeals to the British crown, established the Continental Association to administer boycott actions against Britain. When the Second Continental Congress came together on May 10, 1775 it was, in effect, a reconvening of the First Congress. Many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting participated in the second.[6] Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts. Within two weeks, Peyton Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses; he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by Thomas Jefferson. Hancock was elected president.[7] The second Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

The newly founded country of the United States had to create a new government to replace the British Parliament. The Americans adopted the Articles of Confederation, a declaration that established a national government which was made up of a one-house legislature. Its ratification by all thirteen colonies gave the second Congress a new name: the Congress of the Confederation, which met from 1781 to 1789.[8] Later, the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787, in Philadelphia.[9] Although the Convention was called to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents -- chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton -- was to create a new government rather than try to fix the inadequate existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution.

Harris

Legacy

According to the historian Joseph J. Ellis, the concept of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. emerged in the 1820s as the last survivors died out. Ellis says "the founders," or "the fathers," comprised an aggregate of semi-sacred figures whose particular accomplishments and singular achievements were decidedly less important than their sheer presence as a powerful but faceless symbol of past greatness. For the generation of national leaders coming of age in the 1820s and 1830s – men like Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun – "the founders" represented a heroic but anonymous abstraction whose long shadow fell across all followers and whose legendary accomplishments defied comparison.

"We can win no laurels in a war for independence," Webster acknowledged in 1825. "Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us ... [as] the founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defence and preservation."[10]

The last remaining founders, also called the "Last of the Romans",[11] lived well into the nineteenth century; for example, Andrew Jackson served in the Revolutionary War, eventually became President, died in 1845, and is now sometimes considered a founding father.[12]

List of the Founding Fathers

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Signers of the Continental Association

President of First Continental Congress

1. Peyton Randolph

New-Hampshire

2. Nathaniel Folsom
3. John Sullivan

Massachusetts Bay

4. Thomas Cushing
5. Samuel Adams
6. John Adams
7. Robert Treat Paine

Rhode-Island

8. Stephen Hopkins
9. Samuel Ward

Connecticut

10. Eliphalet Dyer
11. Roger Sherman
12. Silas Deane

New-York

13. Isaac Low
14. John Alsop
15. John Jay
16. James Duane
17. Philip Livingston
18. William Floyd
19. Henry Wisner
20. Simon Boerum

New-Jersey

21. James Kinsey
22. William Livingston
23. Stephen Crane
24. Richard Smith
25. John De Hart

Pennsylvania

26. Joseph Galloway
27. John Dickinson
28. Charles Humphreys
29. Thomas Mifflin
30. Edward Biddle
31. John Morton
32. George Ross

The Lower Counties

33. Caesar Rodney
34. Thomas McKean
35. George Read

Maryland

36. Matthew Tilghman
37. Thomas Johnson, Jr.
38. William Paca
39. Samuel Chase

Virginia

40. Richard Henry Lee
41. George Washington
42. Patrick Henry, Jr.
43. Richard Bland
44. Benjamin Harrison
45. Edmund Pendleton

North-Carolina

46. William Hooper
47. Joseph Hewes
48. Richard Caswell

South-Carolina

49. Henry Middleton
50. Thomas Lynch
51. Christopher Gadsden
52. John Rutledge
53. Edward Rutledge

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Signers of the Declaration of Independence

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Delegates to the Constitutional Convention

Signers of the Constitution

Delegates who left the Convention without signing

Convention delegates who refused to sign

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Signers of the Articles of Confederation

See also: President of the Continental Congress and List of delegates to the Continental Congress

The following people signed the Articles of Confederation:

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Other founders

The following people are referred to in the cited reliable sources as having been fathers or founders of the United States.

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See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Founding Fathers of the United States.

Notes

  1. ^ americanrevolution.org Key to Trumbull's picture
  2. ^ Stanfield, Jack. America's Founding Fathers: Who Are They? Thumbnail Sketches of 164 Patriots (Universal-Publishers, 2001).
  3. ^ a b c d e f R. B. Bernstein, The Founding Fathers Reconsidered (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
  4. ^ a b Richard B. Morris, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
  5. ^ Bernstein, Founding Fathers Reconsidered, prologue (which collects all citations for Harding's uses of the phrase or variants thereof between 1912 and 1921).
  6. ^ Burnett, Continental Congress, 64–67.
  7. ^ Fowler, Baron of Beacon Hill, 189.
  8. ^ "Confederation Congress". Ohio Historical Society. Retrieved October 23, 2010.
  9. ^ Calvin C. Jillson (2009). American Government: Political Development and Institutional Change (5th ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-203-88702-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Joseph J. Ellis; Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams. (2001) p. 214.
  11. ^ Côté, Richard. Strength and Honor: The Life of Dolley Madison, pp. 187 and 393 (Corinthian Books, 2005).
  12. ^ a b c d e Wright, Robert and Cowen, David. Financial Founding Fathers: the Men who Made America Rich (University of Chicago Press, 2006).
  13. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite jstor}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by jstor:364502, please use {{cite journal}} with |jstor=364502 instead.
  14. ^ Newman, Richard. Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers (NYU Press, 2009).
  15. ^ Ballenas, Carl. Images of America: Jamaica (Arcadia Publishing, 2011).
  16. ^ a b Antieau, Chester James (1960). "Natural Rights and the Founding Fathers—The Virginians". Wash. & Lee L. Rev.: 43.
  17. ^ Holmes, David. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. (Oxford University Press US, 2006).
  18. ^ Wood, Gordon S. Revolutionary Characters, What Made the Founding Fathers Different. (New York: Penguin Books, 2007) 225–242.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i Buchanan, John. "Founding Fighters: The Battlefield Leaders Who Made American Independence (review)". The Journal of Military History (Volume 71, Number 2, April 2007), pp. 522–524.
  20. ^ a b c d e Dungan, Nicholas. Gallatin: America's Swiss Founding Father (NYU Press 2010).
  21. ^ a b c d Encyclopaedia Britannica. Founding fathers: the essential guide to the men who made America (John Wiley and Sons, 2007).
  22. ^ LaGumina, Salvatore. The Italian American experience: an encyclopedia, page 361 (Taylor & Francis, 2000).
  23. ^ Unger, Harlow (2009). James Monroe: The Last Founding Father. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81808-6.
  24. ^ Kann, Mark E. (1999). The Gendering of American Politics: Founding Mothers, Founding Fathers, and Political Patriarchy. ABC-CLIO. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-275-96112-1.
  25. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite jstor}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by jstor:25073236, please use {{cite journal}} with |jstor=25073236 instead.
  26. ^ Hall, Max. Harvard University Press: a history, page 138 (Harvard University Press 1986).
  27. ^ Burstein, Andrew. "Politics and Personalities: Garry Wills takes a new look at a forgotten founder, slavery and the shaping of America", Chicago Tribune (November 09, 2003): "Forgotten founders such as Pickering and Morris made as many waves as those whose faces stare out from our currency."
  28. ^ a b Rafael, Ray. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Founding Fathers: And the Birth of Our Nation (Penguin, 2011).
  29. ^ Reardon, John J. (1982). Peyton Randolph, 1721–1775: One Who Presided. Durham, N.C: Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 0-89089-201-6.
  30. ^ Schwartz, Laurens R. Jews and the American Revolution: Haym Solomon and Others, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 1987.
  31. ^ Kendall, Joshua. The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture (Penguin 2011).
  32. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite jstor}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by jstor:27773931, please use {{cite journal}} with |jstor=27773931 instead.
  33. ^ "A Patriot of Early New England", New York Times (December 20, 1931). This book review referred to Wingate as one of the "Fathers" of the United States, per the book title.
  34. ^ The New Yorker, Volume I, page 398 (September 10, 1836): "'The Last of the Romans' — This was said of Madison at the time of his decease, but there is one other person who seems to have some claims to this honorable distinction. Paine Wingate of Stratham, N.H. still survives."

References

  • American National Biography Online, (2000).
  • Richard B. Bernstein, Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).
  • R. B. Bernstein, The Founding Fathers Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
  • Richard D. Brown. "The Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787: A Collective View," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 33, No. 3 (Jul. 1976), pp. 465–480 online at JSTOR.
  • Henry Steele Commager, "Leadership in Eighteenth-Century America and Today," Daedalus 90 (Fall 1961): 650–673, reprinted in Henry Steele Commager, Freedom and Order (New York: George Braziller, 1966).
  • Joseph J. Ellis. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History.
  • Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
  • Jack P. Greene. "The Social Origins of the American Revolution: An Evaluation and an Interpretation," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Mar. 1973), pp. 1–22 online in JSTOR.
  • P.M.G. Harris, "The Social Origins of American Leaders: The Demographic Foundations, " Perspectives in American History 3 (1969): 159–364.
  • Mark E. Kann; The Gendering of American Politics: Founding Mothers, Founding Fathers, and Political Patriarchy (New York: Frederick Praeger, 1999).
  • Adrienne Koch; Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers: Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961).
  • Frank Lambert. The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America. (Princeton, NJ> Princeton University Press, 2003).
  • Martin, James Kirby. Men in Rebellion: Higher Governmental Leaders and the coming of the American Revolution, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973; reprint, New York: Free Press, 1976).
  • Morris, Richard B. Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
  • Robert Previdi; "Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America," Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1999
  • Rakove, Jack. Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2010) 487 pages; scholarly study focuses on how the Founders moved from private lives to public action, beginning in the 1770s
  • Cokie Roberts. Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (New York: William Morrow, 2005); popular
  • Gordon S. Wood. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (New York: Penguin Press, 2006)
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