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Contents
Important People ...................................................................................................................................... 4
ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744-1818) ...................................................................................................... 4
JOHN ADAMS ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Famous Quotes ............................................................................................................................. 6
SAMUEL ADAMS................................................................................................................................ 7
Famous Quotes ............................................................................................................................. 8
CHARLES CARROLL ........................................................................................................................ 9
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 10
JOHN DICKINSON........................................................................................................................... 11
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 12
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ................................................................................................................... 13
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 14
ELBRIDGE GERRY ......................................................................................................................... 15
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 16
ALEXANDER HAMILTON .............................................................................................................. 17
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 18
JOHN HANCOCK ............................................................................................................................. 19
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 20
PARTICK HENRY ............................................................................................................................. 21
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 22
JOHN JAY ........................................................................................................................................... 23
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 24
THOMAS JEFFERSON .................................................................................................................. 25
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 26
RICHARD HENRY LEE .................................................................................................................. 27
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 28
JAMES MADISON ............................................................................................................................ 29
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 30
GEROGE MASON ............................................................................................................................ 31
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 32
GOUVERNER MORRIS ................................................................................................................. 33
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 34
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ROBERT MORRIS ........................................................................................................................... 35
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 36
JAMES OTIS ...................................................................................................................................... 37
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 38
THOMAS PAINE ............................................................................................................................... 39
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 40
CHARLES PINCKNEY .................................................................................................................... 41
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 42
BENJAMIN RUSH ............................................................................................................................ 43
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 44
ROGER SHERMAN ......................................................................................................................... 45
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 46
GEORGE WASHINGTON .............................................................................................................. 47
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 50
JAMES WILSON ............................................................................................................................... 51
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 52
JOHN WITHERSPOON .................................................................................................................. 53
Famous Quotes ........................................................................................................................... 54
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Important People
ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744-1818)
Abigail Smith Adams was born in Massachusetts, a descendant of the
distinguished Quincy family. She married young lawyer John Adams in 1764.
They settled on a farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. The couple had four
surviving children, including son John Quincy Adams. Abigail raised the children
and ran the farm while John traveled as a circuit judge and later while he served
overseas. She and John corresponded through their long separations and her
letters tell of her loneliness, but she persevered with courage and industry.
Abigail often shared her views with John on political matters. She famously
requested that the framers of the Constitution “remember the ladies,” telling her
husband that “all men would be tyrants if they could.” She also told John that she
believed there was a need for the Alien and Sedition Acts.
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JOHN ADAMS
Short, overweight, and quick-tongued, John Adams hardly fits the model of the
typical Founder. But Adams’s contributions to American independence and the
formation of the United States government were great. Adams penned defenses
of American rights in the 1770s and was one of the earliest advocates of colonial
independence from Great Britain. The author of the Massachusetts Constitution
and Declaration of Rights of 1780, Adams was also a champion of individual
liberty. He favored the addition of the Bill of Rights to the United States
Constitution. When he was elected president in 1796, he kept America out of war
with France, but signed the unpopular (and likely unconstitutional) Alien and
Sedition Acts to do so.
Adams was a principled man who was willing to take unpopular stands. For
example, his legal defense of the British soldiers who killed five Bostonians in the
infamous “Massacre” of 1770 lost him law clients and friends. Though he often
spoke his mind openly, Adams trusted few people aside from his wife Abigail, his
only confidante. To her he once lamented that “mausoleums, statues,
monuments will never be erected to me.” For many years such contemporaries
as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson obscured him
from the gaze of posterity. But in recent years, Adams’s contributions have been
reevaluated and the man whom Thomas Jefferson called “a colossus of
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independence” has assumed his rightful place among his fellow Founders
esteemed by history.
Famous Quotes
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be
to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” – 1772
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” –
1775
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SAMUEL ADAMS
Samuel Adams was born on September 22, 1722, in Quincy, Massachusetts. He
entered Harvard College at the age of 14. During the 1760s, Adams became a
leader of the Patriot resistance to the British government’s attempt to tax the
American colonies. With John Hancock and James Otis, Adams organized the
Sons of Liberty. This group worked to oppose the new taxes enacted by the royal
governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson.
In 1772, Adams composed a pamphlet entitled “The Rights of the Colonists.” In
this essay, Adams appealed to the idea of natural rights. Adams claimed that the
American colonists were “entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and
inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of subjects born in Great Britain.”
Though Adams did not go so far as to call for American independence outright,
he asked frankly, “how long such treatment will or ought to be borne.”
Adams was elected to the Continental Congress in 1774. In that body, he
became a champion of American independence. Adams served on the
committee that drafted the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. As a
member of the Continental Congress, he also helped write and signed
the Articles of Confederation. Adams did not attend the Constitutional Convention
of 1787. He rejected the purpose of the Convention, which was to strengthen the
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central government. Adams feared that a stronger government would infringe on
the people’s liberty.
Famous Quotes
“The country shall be independent, and we will be satisfied with nothing short of
it.” – 1774
“Of how much importance is it that the utmost pains be taken by the public to
have the principles of virtue early inculcated on the minds even of children, and
the moral sense kept alive.” – 1775
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CHARLES CARROLL
Charles Carroll is primarily remembered today for his political leadership in
Maryland during the Revolutionary era. A wealthy planter, Carroll became a
major figure in the patriot movement in 1773 when he penned the First Citizen
letters, attacking the governor’s unilateral imposition of a fee as an unjust tax
upon the people. A member of the Continental Congress, Carroll signed
the Declaration of Independence. He also helped to write Maryland’s Constitution
of 1776. After American independence was achieved, he served in the United
States Senate and the Maryland legislature.
Carroll’s role as a champion of religious liberty is less well known. Like many
American Catholics at the time, he favored the separation of church and state
and the free exercise of religion, at least for Christians. These principles were a
logical consequence of the minority status of Catholics in Maryland and the
nation. In nearly every American colony, Catholics suffered legal disabilities of
some kind. Catholics in Maryland, for example, were denied the vote and the
right to hold office. In his First Citizen letters, Carroll defended his right—and by
extension, the right of his co-religionists—to participate in public affairs. He
successfully fought to have religious liberty for all Christians, including Catholics,
guaranteed by the Maryland Constitution of 1776.
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In his later years, Carroll became famous among his countrymen as the last
surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. By the time of his death in
1832, American independence was assured, but the battle for tolerance in the
United States for Catholics and other religious minorities was unfinished.
Famous Quotes
“I do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles of
that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could
bequeath to them.” – 1826
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JOHN DICKINSON
John Dickinson was called “The Penman of the American Revolution.” During the
1760s and 1770s, he authored numerous important essays in defense of
American rights, including The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies,
the resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, the Letters from a Farmer in
Pennsylvania, the “Petition to the King,” and the Declaration of the Causes of
Taking Up Arms. His Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania had a circulation
greater than any Revolutionary pamphlet with the exception of Thomas
Paine’s Common Sense. He wrote the lyrics to the first American patriotic song,
“The Liberty Song.” Dickinson also drafted the Articles of Confederation, the
country’s first frame of government. Some say that he came up with the name,
“United States of America,” the words that open that document. His reputation as
a writer was almost unparalleled among his contemporaries.
Dickinson was a reluctant revolutionary who absented himself from the
Continental Congress on the day that the Declaration of Independence was
adopted. A cautious conservative, he opposed independence as a dangerous
break with the past. One prominent historian has labeled Dickinson “an
American Burke.” Like the British critic of the French Revolution, Dickinson was a
defender of tradition against innovation. This explains not only his opposition to
independence but also his resistance to altering the form of Pennsylvania’s
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colonial government, his initial reluctance to go to war with the British in the
1770s, and his moderate stance at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Dickinson’s innate prudence made him one of the wisest and most important of
the Founders.
Famous Quotes
“Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.” – 1787
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Although he was the old sage of the American Revolution and the Founding
generation, Benjamin Franklin’s considerable work in the areas of journalism,
science, and invention often obscure his many contributions to the creation of
the Constitution and protection of American freedoms. His stature was second
only to George Washington in lending credibility to the new federal government,
and his wisdom helped ensure the structural stability of what is now the oldest
written constitution still in force in the world.
Franklin’s Albany Plan of 1754 was the first formal proposal for a union of the
English colonies. Though it failed to gain the requisite support, it signaled the
colonies’ desire to be more independent from the mother country. Also, the
Albany Plan’s federal system government in some ways foreshadowed the
political system created by the Constitution three decades later.
Franklin was also an early opponent of slavery who feared that the institution
would corrode the cords of friendship among the new American states. Despite
his abhorrence of the slave system, however, Franklin was willing to compromise
on the issue at the Constitutional Convention, and he remained optimistic about
the young nation’s prospects.
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Franklin began writing an Autobiography in 1771 while he was living in England.
The account of his life ends at age 51 (1757), well before the American
Revolution, so the book does not discuss the Founding period or the
Constitution. It chronicles the first half-century of his life and contains the author’s
reflections on life, literature, religion, and philosophy.
Famous Quotes
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – 1776
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ELBRIDGE GERRY
Elbridge Gerry is remembered today for his controversial attempt as governor to
draw congressional districts in Massachusetts to the advantage of his party.
Indeed, “gerrymandering” is a common political tactic today and undeniably part
of Gerry’s legacy. But Gerry was more than a cunning politician. He was also a
leader of the American independence movement, an important critic of
the Constitution, and a wartime vice president of the United States.
Cantankerous and obstinate, Gerry seemed to shift his political views according
to circumstances. His unpredictable nature often frustrated even his allies. At the
Constitutional Convention, he first played the role of moderate and mediator but
ended up a critic of the final document. Gerry feared that the central government
set up by the Constitution would become dangerously powerful. He was one of
three delegates who stayed until the end of the convention but who refused to
sign the Constitution.
Explore Gerry’s contributions at the Constitutional Convention with our
activity Madison’s Notes are Missing where you will travel back in time to ask
questions of the Founders and report their findings in a news story.
Once the document was ratified, however, Gerry accepted a seat in the new
Congress and even began to sympathize with the Federalist Party, which favored
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a strong central government. But after being criticized by the Federalists for his
role in the XYZ Affair that strained the relationship between France and the
United States during the administration of John Adams, Gerry embraced the rival
Democratic-Republicans. As a member of this party Gerry served as governor of
Massachusetts and as vice president under James Madison during the War of
1812. He died while serving in the latter office, a public servant until the end of
his life.
Famous Quotes
“Something must be done or we shall disappoint not only America but the whole
world.” – 1787
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON
Alexander Hamilton is perhaps the most misunderstood and under-appreciated
of the Founders. A proponent of a strong national government with an “energetic
executive,” he is sometimes described as the godfather of modern big
government. However, Hamilton was no less a champion of human liberty than
his more famous political rival and American icon, Thomas Jefferson.
Hamilton’s personal story is impressive. Born in the West Indies, the illegitimate
son of a Scottish merchant, young Hamilton seemed condemned to a life of
hardship in the lowest rung of society. But his intellectual talents won him
passage to the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution. Though still a
teenager in 1775, Hamilton made a name for himself as a spokesman for the
Patriot cause. After American independence, he worked to strengthen the
national government as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. As secretary
of the treasury in the Washington Administration, Hamilton endeavored to
promote an industrial, market economy throughout the United States of America.
Though his plan was not fully implemented in his lifetime, Hamilton’s ideas
became the foundation of the American financial and economic system that
would take shape during the mid- and late nineteenth century.
While acting as the defense lawyer in a New York trial of 1803, Hamilton
expanded the idea of freedom of the press by arguing that truth could be used as
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a defense in criminal libel cases. Though he lost the case, New York
subsequently changed its libel laws, accepting Hamilton’s argument. A year after
the trial, Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr in a duel, cutting short the life of a
significant Founder. Stop by and take our Constitution knowledge
duel inspired by Hamilton and Burr’s famous duel.
Hamilton, along with James Madison and John Jay, authored of several of The
Federalist Papers, including Federalist Paper No. 70.
Famous Quotes
“In a government framed for durable liberty, no less regard must be paid to giving
the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with
vigour than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community.
As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both
eventually to the ruin of the people.” – 1781
“Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good
government.” – 1788
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JOHN HANCOCK
Forever famous for his outsized signature on the Declaration of Independence,
John Hancock was a larger than life figure in other ways as well. Part of the great
Boston triumvirate that included Samuel Adams and James Otis, Hancock was a
wealthy merchant whose bank account helped to finance the radical activities of
the Sons of Liberty. Hancock himself became a thorn in the side of the British,
who seized his ship, the Liberty, in 1768 and put a price on his head in 1775.
Hancock served as president of the Continental Congress and presided over the
signing of the Declaration of August 2, 1776. Disappointed at being passed over
for command of the Continental Army in 1777, he returned to Massachusetts,
where he had a hand in writing the state constitution of 1780 and served as
governor for all but four years between 1780 and 1793. Hancock agreed to
support ratification of the Constitution despite his reservations about centralized
government power.
Popular in his day and in the hearts of succeeding generations of Americans
because of his famous signature, opinion of Hancock remains divided. Some
agree with John Adams that he was “an essential character” in the Revolution,
while others belittle him as no more than Samuel Adams’s moneyman and tool.
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Famous Quotes
“I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.” – 1774
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PARTICK HENRY
Patrick Henry is known for being a steadfast patriot opposed to a strong
centralized government. In 1765, Henry was elected to the Virginia House of
Burgesses. By the 1770s, Henry had emerged as one of the most radical leaders
of the opposition to British tyranny. In 1776, Virginia and the other colonies
declared their independence from Great Britain. Henry served as the first
governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. He then served in the Virginia House of
Delegates from 1780 to 1784. In 1784, Henry was elected again to the
governorship for a 2-year term.
In 1787, Henry received an invitation to participate in a convention to revise
the Articles of Confederation. He refused to attend what became the
Constitutional Convention, as he feared that the meeting was a plot by the
powerful to construct a strong central government of which they would be the
masters. When the new Constitution was sent to Virginia for ratification in 1788,
Henry was one of its most outspoken critics. Henry wondered aloud why the
Constitution did not include a bill of rights. Henry believed that the absence of a
bill of rights was part of the attempt by the few to amass power. The arguments
of Henry and other Anti-Federalists compelled James Madison, the leader of the
Virginia Federalists, to promise the addition of a bill of rights to the Constitution
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once the document was approved. After 25 days of heated debate, on June 26,
1788, Virginia became the 10th state to ratify the Constitution.
In 1789, the first Congress of the United States sent a list of 12 amendments to
the states. Henry believed that these amendments did not adequately safeguard
the rights of the people and the states. He therefore did not support them,
instead calling for a new convention to revise the Constitution. Nevertheless,
Virginia approved all 12 amendments, and 10 of these were ratified by the
required number of states and added to the Constitution in 1791. These 10
amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.
Famous Quotes
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give
me death.” – 1775
“Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were
placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men without a consequent
loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with
absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.” – 1788
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JOHN JAY
John Jay epitomized the selfless leader of the American Revolution. Born to a
prominent New York family, John Jay gained notoriety as a lawyer in his home
state. He favored a moderate approach to Britain but joined his fellow Patriots
once the Declaration of Independence was signed. Jay’s fellow Founders
regarded him so highly that they elected him President of the Assembly, the
highest office in the land under the Articles of Confederation.
Ten years later, President George Washington appointed him the first chief
justice of the Supreme Court. He reluctantly resigned from the Supreme Court
because he had been elected Governor of New York—an office he neither
desired nor sought. As Governor, Jay fought for the emancipation of slaves by
organizing and mobilizing abolitionist groups and signing an emancipation bill.
Jay left his mark on the new nation despite being somewhat marginalized by
history. Jay wrote five essays in The Federalist Papers, but James
Madison and Alexander Hamilton receive recognition for the now classic
commentary. He worked for the Treaty of Paris, but history has given Benjamin
Franklin and John Adams most of the credit. He negotiated a trade treaty with
Great Britain that helped avoid a war, but history emphasizes his failures. He led
the fight against slavery in New York, but his efforts are often overlooked on the
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national scale. He affected several of the foundations that were invaluable to a
struggling infant nation and appreciated by his fellow Founding Fathers.
Famous Quotes
“This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it
appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and
convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties,
should never be split into a number unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.” –
1787
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THOMAS JEFFERSON
Thomas Jefferson hoped that he would be remembered for three
accomplishments: his founding of the University of Virginia, his crafting of the
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and his authorship of the Declaration of
Independence. It is for the last that he has most endeared himself to succeeding
generations as a champion of liberty and equality.
Jefferson believed that these achievements were the high points of a life
dedicated to the promotion of human freedom. Education, he held, freed the
mind from ignorance, tolerance freed the will from coercion, and the assertion of
human liberty and equality freed the body from the chains of tyranny. Securing
religious liberty in the new republic was one of Thomas Jefferson’s most
important goals. His papers, including the letter to the Danbury Baptists
Association, as well as the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, reveal a
statesman who recognized the civic utility of religion, but believed that
government had no business regulating belief.
However, Jefferson’s actions sometimes contradicted his words. An opponent of
centralized power, as president he completed the Louisiana Purchase and
unhesitatingly employed the resources of the federal government to enforce the
harsh and unpopular Embargo Act. Although a proponent of individual rights, he
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excused the atrocities committed by the French Revolutionaries during the Reign
of Terror. A critic of slavery who outlawed the slave trade as president, he was
the owner of more than 200 African American slaves. Understanding Jefferson
lies in the difficult task of reconciling these inconsistencies.
Famous Quotes
“May it [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world what I believe it will be,
the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance
and superstition had persuaded them to find themselves, and to assume the
blessings and security of self-government. . . . All eyes are opened, or opening to
the rights of man.” – 1826
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in
the political world as storms in the physical. . . . An observation of this truth
should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of
rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the
sound health of government.” – 1787
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RICHARD HENRY LEE
Richard Henry Lee in many ways personified the elite Virginia gentry. A planter
and slaveholder, he was tall, handsome, and genteel in his manners. Raised in a
conservative environment, Lee was nonetheless radical in his social and political
views. As early as the 1750s, he denounced slavery as an evil, and he even
favored the vote for women who owned property. Lee was also among the first to
advocate separation from Great Britain, introducing the resolution in the Second
Continental Congress that led to independence.
Though Lee was a planter, politics was his true calling. He reveled in backroom
bargaining and during the imperial crisis he learned how to utilize mob action to
resist British tyranny. In denouncing British transgressions, Lee’s oratory was
said to rival that of his more renowned fellow Virginian, Patrick Henry. Lee was
an ally and friend of Samuel Adams, who shared the Virginian’s aversion to
money-grubbing and ostentatious displays of wealth. Like Adams, Lee neglected
his financial affairs and often struggled to make ends meet. At one point in his
life, he was forced to live on a diet of wild pigeons.
Lee believed that good government required virtue, defined as self-sacrifice for
the public good. He rejected the idea held by some Founders that the proper
design of governing institutions was all that was needed to protect liberty.
Nevertheless, a poorly constructed government could destroy virtue and, as a
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consequence, liberty. This is why Lee opposed the Constitution of 1787, which in
his opinion dangerously concentrated power in the federal government. Lee has
sometimes been credited with authorship of the Letters from the Federal Farmer
to the Republican, a series of newspaper essays published anonymously in
Virginia in 1787-1788 by an opponent of the Constitution. Though this is still a
matter of much debate among historians, the views of the Federal Farmer
undoubtedly mirror Lee’s own quite closely.
Famous Quotes
“I know there are [those] among you who laugh at virtue, and with vain
ostentatious display of words will deduce from vice, public good! But such men
are much fitter to be Slaves in the corrupt, rotten despotisms of Europe, than to
remain citizens of young and rising republics.” – 1779
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JAMES MADISON
James Madison’s slight stature and reserved personality gave little indication of
his keen intellect and shrewd nature. No other Founder had as much influence in
crafting, ratifying, and interpreting the United States Constitution and the Bill of
Rights as he did. A skilled political tactician, Madison proved instrumental in
determining the form of the early American republic. Explore Madison’s
contributions at the Constitutional Convention with our activity Madison’s Notes
are Missing where you will travel back in time to ask questions of the Founders
and report their findings in a news story.
Madison believed that men in society tended to form factions, defined as groups
that promoted their own interest at the expense of the rest. Factions posed a
special problem for democratic societies because a faction composed of the
majority of the people could easily oppress the minority. To combat this, as he
argued in Federalist Paper No. 51, power must be set against power, and
“ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Madison therefore favored the
separation of powers within the central government and a division of power
between the national and state governments. This latter concept, federalism, was
a radical idea in the late eighteenth century. Few people at the time believed that
power in a nation could be divided between two levels of government, each
supreme in its own sphere.
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Madison believed that safety lay in numbers. The more heterogeneous the
society, the less chance there would be for any one group to combine with others
to form a faction of the majority. Though ancient philosophers had argued that
only small republics could survive for a long period of time, Madison believed the
opposite. A large republic could encompass many different groups and different
interests—economic, religious, and social—and thereby provide a safeguard
against the tyranny of the majority.
Famous Quotes
“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must in human
hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” – 1787
“Place three individuals in a situation wherein the interest of each depends on the
voice of the others, and give to two of them an interest opposed to the rights of
the third. Will the latter be secure? The prudence of every man would shun the
danger. The rules & forms of justice suppose & guard against it. Will two
thousand in a like situation be less likely to encroach on the rights of one
thousand?” – 1821
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GEROGE MASON
George Mason’s ideas helped to shape the Founding documents of the United
States, but few Americans remember him today. The words he used when writing
the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution of 1776 inspired
the nation’s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Mason was an
associate of fellow Virginians George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas
Jefferson, the last of whom called Mason “a man of the first order of greatness.”
Though he detested politics, Mason believed that it was his duty to protect the
rights of his fellow citizens. He therefore entered public life and took an active
role in shaping the governments of his state and nation. He was an eloquent
advocate for individual freedom and states’ rights. He also spoke out against the
institution of slavery, though he owned hundreds of slaves who toiled on his
Gunston Hall plantation.
Mason spent the last years of his life fighting to ensure that the newly
minted Constitution would guarantee the rights of the people. Though the Bill of
Rights was eventually approved, Mason was unsatisfied, believing that it failed to
protect the people’s rights adequately. Faithful to his principles, he retired to his
plantation a defeated man, choosing not to serve as Virginia’s first senator to
avoid joining a government he feared could be the beginning of the end of liberty
in the United States.
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Explore Mason’s contributions at the Constitutional Convention with our
activity Madison’s Notes are Missing where you will travel back in time to ask
questions of the Founders and report their findings in a news story.
Famous Quotes
“In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this
fundamental maxim—that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is
derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as
our armour.” – 1775
“We claim Nothing but the Liberty & Privileges of Englishmen, in the same
Degree, as if we had still continued among our Brethren in Great Britain: these
Rights have not been forfeited by any Act of ours, we can not be deprived of
them without our Consent, but by Violence & Injustice; We have received them
from our Ancestors and, with God’s Leave, we will transmit them, unimpaired to
our Posterity.” – 1776
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GOUVERNER MORRIS
Though James Madison has been given the title “Father of the Constitution,”
Gouverneur Morris could be considered second in importance in shaping the final
version. Morris spoke more often (173 times) than any other delegate at the
Constitutional Convention of 1787. Though he was often on the losing side of
issues and was not a political theorist on the level of Madison, Morris was a
leader of the nationalist bloc at the Convention that ultimately carried the day. In
addition, it was the native New Yorker who actually crafted much of the language
of the United States Constitution.
Assigned to the Committee of Style as debate at the Philadelphia Convention
drew to a close, Morris was given the task of wording the Constitution by the
committee’s members. Through thoughtful word choice, Morris attempted to
enhance the power of the federal government. Most significantly, Morris’s choice
of the words, “We the people,” for the beginning of the famous Preamble helped
to define the American nation as a single entity, created by the people, not the
states. This argument would later be used by John Marshall and Abraham
Lincoln to assert the supremacy of the federal government over the states.
Troubled by the War of 1812, sectional differences, and evidence of national
weakness, Morris lent support in the last few years of his life to a movement to
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establish a separate confederacy encompassing New England and New York. It
was perhaps an unexpected epilogue to the life of a man who had done so much
to promote a strong Union twenty-five years earlier.
Famous Quotes
“Slavery is the curse of heaven on the States where it prevails.” – 1787
“In adopting a republican form of government, I not only took it as man does his
wife, for better, for worse, but what few men do with their wives, I took it knowing
all its bad qualities.” – 1803
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ROBERT MORRIS
Known as the “Financier of the Revolution,” Robert Morris played a critical role in
winning and securing American independence. As chairman of the Continental
Congress’s Finance Committee between 1775 and 1778, Morris traded flour and
tobacco to France in exchange for war supplies such as guns, powder, and
blankets. Morris risked his own ships in bringing these supplies past the
fearsome British Navy. He was also the architect of the financial system of the
early republic. As superintendent of finance under the Articles of Confederation,
Morris almost single-handedly saved the United States from financial catastrophe
in the 1780s. His plan to fund the national debt and to deposit federal money in a
private bank foreshadowed the financial system that Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton would implement in the 1790s.
Though Morris risked much of his personal wealth in service to his country, he
was criticized by some for profiting from public service. During his chairmanship
of Congress’s Finance Committee, Morris’s company was paid by the American
government a commission of two percent on each shipment of supplies the
company brought into the country. This compensation was in lieu of the salary
that most public officials received. Nevertheless, Morris’s enemies seized upon
the appearance of impropriety and charged him with malfeasance. But
investigations of Morris’s conduct failed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing. Some
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of the accusations against him were motivated by jealousy, as Morris became
perhaps the richest man in America in the 1780s.
Morris signed all three of the nation’s principal documents: the Declaration of
Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He was
indeed a leading supporter of the Constitution, believing it imperative that the
national government be empowered to deal with the country’s financial problems.
Despite his genius for money, however, Morris fell on hard times in the 1790s.
The man who was largely responsible for the nation’s emerging prosperity
ironically spent his final years in poverty.
Famous Quotes
“It is the duty of every individual to act his part in whatever station his country
may call him to in hours of difficulty, danger, and distress.” – Robert Morris
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JAMES OTIS
James Otis was called the most important American of the 1760s by John
Adams. A trained lawyer and master of argument, James Otis was a leader of
the Patriot movement in Boston in those years. Initially a prosecutor for the
British authorities, Otis changed sides in 1761, when he argued against writs of
assistance (broad search warrants that British officials used to search the homes
and businesses of colonists). During the 1760s, Otis led the intellectual attack
against British tyranny, composing ringing defenses of liberty that won Americans
to the revolutionary cause and helped to inspire the well-known slogan, “No
taxation without representation.”
Otis was also one of the first well-known Americans to defend the natural rights
of Africans and to condemn slavery. In doing so, he demonstrated his intellectual
honesty and integrity, as well as his personal bravery. John Adams and many
others were alarmed by his arguments about race, though Adams knew that they
could not be refuted.
Already an eccentric, high-strung and unsteady man, Otis suffered brain damage
when a British official whom Otis had singled out for criticism in a newspaper
essay attacked him in 1769. The assault incapacitated Otis and ended his public
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career. His contributions to the American resistance movement were largely
forgotten, not only by his contemporaries but also by later generations.
Famous Quotes
“One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s
house. A man’s house is his castle.” – 1774
“I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given
me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as
this writ of assistance is.” – 1761
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THOMAS PAINE
Thomas Paine was a major figure during the early years of the American
Revolution. One of the foremost propagandists for American liberty in the 1770s,
Paine penned words that rallied the war-weary spirit of the colonists and that still
stir the hearts of Americans today, even when taken out of their original context:
“These are the times that try men’s souls…. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country….
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…. The harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph.” His Common Sense was the bestselling pamphlet of the
Revolutionary era (as a percentage of the population, it was read by more people
than watch the Super Bowl today) and The American Crisis was also well-known
at the time. Common Sense is still widely available and read today by students of
the period. He is often cited as a champion of liberty.
Curiously, Paine played no role in the formation of the American government
after independence. He lived outside the United States during the critical years
(1787–1802) when the nation’s new political institutions were being tested. While
abroad, he more openly advocated the ideals of the Enlightenment in their most
extreme form, railing against established religion, legal precedent, and all
tradition. In the 1770s, Thomas Paine embodied the American Revolutionary
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spirit better than any other writer, but the radical road that he followed to
Revolutionary France in the 1780s and 1790s is the path America chose to
reject.
Famous Quotes
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” – 1776
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” – 1776
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CHARLES PINCKNEY
Born near Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, Charles Pinckney
was the child of a wealthy family. He received a first-rate education and became
an accomplished lawyer. Pinckney joined the state militia during the American
Revolution and fought the British at Savannah and Charles Town. After the war,
he became a member of the Confederation Congress and then a delegate to the
Philadelphia Convention, which was convened for the purpose of revising
the Articles. A moderate whose wartime experience caused him to see the
necessity for a stronger central government, Pinckney nevertheless was jealous
of the rights of the South in general and his native state in particular.
Pinckney was most sensitive to infringements upon the South’s right to preserve
slavery and the slave trade. Like most Americans of his time—in both North and
South—Pinckney held what modern people would call “racist” views. Pinckney
saw slavery as a positive good and could not imagine blacks as equals. He
therefore fought for the protection of the slave trade at the Constitutional
Convention and, thirty years later, opposed the Missouri Compromise because it
set the dangerous precedent of allowing the federal Congress to outlaw slavery
in the territories.
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Explore Pinckney’s contributions at the Constitutional Convention with our
activity Madison’s Notes are Missing where you will travel back in time to ask
questions of the Founders and report their findings in a news story.
Famous Quotes
“They [Africans] certainly must have been created with less intellectual power
than the whites, and were most probably intended to serve them, and be the
instruments of their cultivation.” – 1821
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BENJAMIN RUSH
The fourth of seven children born to Quaker parents, Benjamin Rush was the
most famous physician of his time. Known and respected by many of the
Founding generation, Benjamin Rush treated illnesses such as yellow fever and
smallpox, putting himself at great risk to do so. During the yellow fever epidemic
of the 1790s he often saw more than one hundred patients a day and published
an account of his findings, An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever, as it
Appeared in the City of Philadelphia, in the Year 1793. His regular practice of
bloodletting was surrounded by debate.
He did not limit his ingenuity to medicine. He also played a major role in
revolutionary politics, attending the Continental Congress of 1776 and signing
the Declaration of Independence. He and James Wilson led their home state of
Pennsylvania to become the second state to ratify the new Constitution.
Decidedly revolutionary in his thinking, he worked to cure social ills such as
slavery, alcoholism, and tobacco addiction. He was a pioneer in the study of
mental illness and a champion of humanitarian reforms. He often said that, when
it came to bringing about much-needed change, “Prudence is a rascally virtue.”
His reputation was for innovation and candor, if sometimes to the point of
tactlessness. Throughout his career, Rush pursued his revolutionary ideas with
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three goals in mind: to improve life, ensure liberty, and encourage the pursuit of
happiness.
Famous Quotes
“The American war is over; but this is far from being the case with the American
Revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of drama is closed. It
remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to
prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of
government after they are established and brought to perfection.” – 1786
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ROGER SHERMAN
Although not the most charismatic or eloquent Founder, Roger Sherman was
highly esteemed by his contemporaries. At Sherman’s death, Ezra Stiles,
president of Yale College, wrote, “He was an extraordinary man—a venerable
uncorrupted patriot.” A talented politician, Sherman was also a man of deep
religious faith who approached life seriously. Thomas Jefferson once claimed
that the Connecticut statesman “never said a foolish thing in his life.” A self-made
man with the power of common sense and the ability to compromise, Sherman
was completely dedicated to public service at both the state and national levels.
He had a hand in the creation of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of
Confederation, and the Constitution.
Sherman was an early champion of union, first among the colonies and then
among the states. He understood the benefits of having a central government
that could address national needs and handle international affairs. Sherman
jealously guarded the rights of the people of America in general and of
Connecticut in particular against encroachments by, first, the government of
Great Britain, and, after independence, the government of the United States. A
leader of American opposition to British tyranny in the 1760s and 1770s, he
served in the First and Second Continental Congresses and was a member of
the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. At the Constitutional
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Convention of 1787, he fought to protect the rights of the states, thereby lending
support to the principle of federalism that was crucial to the American system of
government.
Explore Sherman’s contributions at the Constitutional Convention with our
activity Madison’s Notes are Missingwhere you will travel back in time to ask
questions of the Founders and report their findings in a news story.
Famous Quotes
“Government is instituted for those who live under it.” – 1787
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GEORGE WASHINGTON
Americans have long appreciated George Washington’s importance to our
history. Washington secured American independence as commander of the
Continental Army and established traditions as the nation’s first president. His
unblemished character and force of personality steeled men’s hearts in combat
and stirred their souls in peace. Recently, historians have begun to recognize
Washington’s intellectual contributions to the formation of the American republic.
Washington understood the relationship between political theory and practice
and was close to many of the leading statesmen of the time like James Madison,
Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, the friendship between
Washington and Madison is one of the most important political partnerships of
the Founding Era.
During the 1780s, Washington’s home at Mount Vernon served as a crossroads
for ideas that led to the shaping of the Constitution in 1787 at Philadelphia.
Representatives of the Confederation Congress, delegates to the Constitutional
Convention, and members of state ratifying conventions all stopped at Mount
Vernon during the decade on their journeys north and south. Few of these
conversations are recorded in detail, but no other private home in America was
the scene of so many discussions among the politically powerful. It could justly
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be said that the outlines of the new republic were largely drawn one hundred feet
above the Potomac River on a farm whose location marked the exact geographic
midpoint between North and South.
Washington was elected president of the United States in 1789. Read
Washington’s Inaugural Address.
On September 19, 1796, many Americans woke up and read their newspaper.
That day the headline emblazoned across Philadelphia’s largest paper,
the American Daily Advertiser, was quite a surprise: “President To Resign;
Issues Solemn Warnings To Nation.” The full text of what came to be known
as Washington’s Farewell Address also appeared in the paper that day.
While the Constitution did not expressly limit the term of the president,
Washington knew its system of checks and balances was designed to prevent an
abuse of power. So though its letter did not forbid a third term, he felt its spirit did.
Washington’s refusal of a third term set an example for his successors that was
followed until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for and was elected to
third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944. (The Twenty-Second Amendment,
setting presidential term limits, was added to the Constitution in 1951.) The
Constitution’s framework for government and its assurance of liberty would only
work if people were willing and able to moderate their own passions and
prejudices. The example he set by resigning was one of moderation.
Even writing a farewell speech presented a challenge for Washington. He wrote
to James Madison in 1792 and shared his concerns that such a speech “may be
construed into a maneuver to be invited to remain.” In fact, Alexander Hamilton
wrote most of the speech.
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His farewell address is best remembered for its advice on foreign affairs, but it
also addressed issues of self-discipline. He warned against leaders who have a
“love of power” as dangerous to liberty: “A just estimate of that love of power, and
proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to
satisfy us of the truth of this position,” Washington said.
Washington had always been moderate in his desire for power. He had been
somewhat of a reluctant hero since the beginning of his career in the military and
politics in 1775, when the Continental Congress appointed him Commander in
Chief of the Continental Army. Washington did not seek out this position, but felt
he should do his duty. He led the colonial troops for the eight years before and
immediately after the American Revolution. When he relinquished his
commission in 1783, Washington told Congress that it was the “last solemn act of
my official life.”
Like many of his contemporaries, Washington admired the republic the Romans
had created, but also learned that its demise resulted from a lack of selfdiscipline and moderation. A quote from one of his favorite plays about ancient
Rome, Cato, reveals the importance Washington gave to moderation: “Thy
steady temper. . . can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Caesar in the calm light
of mild philosophy.”
Washington was well aware of the historical nature of his presidency. Ever
conscious of his conduct, he applied the values he held dear in private to his
public life. He reflected on his position as role model: “I walk on untrodden
ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be
drawn into precedent.”
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Famous Quotes
“When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.” – 1775
“The time is now and near at hand which must probably determine whether
Americans are to be freemen or slaves. . . . Our cruel and unrelenting enemy
leaves us the only choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We
have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.” – 1776
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JAMES WILSON
James Wilson lived what one might call a double life. His formidable intellect,
passion for politics, and willingness to fight for his beliefs made him one of the
most influential leaders of his time. On the other hand, his penchant for land
speculation left him a penniless fugitive by the end of his life.
The often-controversial lawmaker had a complicated relationship with his
constituents. His home state of Pennsylvania recalled him from Congress in 1777
for vehemently opposing the form of the state constitution, only to restore him to
office when no one was found to take his place. However, ten years later he was
able to effectively persuade his fellow citizens to ratify the new United States
Constitution (making Pennsylvania the second state to do so) after returning from
the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Explore Wilson’s contributions at the
Constitutional Convention with our activity Madison’s Notes are Missingwhere
you will travel back in time to ask questions of the Founders and report their
findings in a news story.
Wilson’s Federalist views had been honed as a student of one of Pennsylvania’s
most prominent lawyer-lawmakers, later in his own thriving legal practice, and
then finally as an influential member of the Second Continental Congress and the
Constitutional Convention. He later served as an associate justice on the first
Supreme Court.
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His contemporaries, including President George Washington, saw great talent in
him, but they sensed that his outspoken manner and poor financial decisions had
tarnished his reputation by the end of his career in politics. Nevertheless,
Wilson’s dedication to the philosophy of popular sovereignty was vital to the
shaping and ratification of the United States Constitution, to the structure of the
executive branch, and to our system of presidential election.
Famous Quotes
“I will confess, indeed, that I am not a blind admirer of this plan of government,
and that there are some parts of it which, if my wish had prevailed, would
certainly have been altered. But when I reflect how widely men differ in their
opinions, and that every man (and the observation applies likewise to every
State) has an equal pretension to assert his own, I am satisfied that anything
nearer to perfection could not have been accomplished.” – 1787
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JOHN WITHERSPOON
He was a father figure to America’s Founders. A renowned theologian from
Scotland, John Witherspoon educated many young men who became prominent
leaders of the Founding generation. He went on to embrace the revolutionary
cause. He signed the Declaration of Independence, participated in the
Continental Congress, and served in positions of influence in the New Jersey
state government. Yet Witherspoon’s greatest legacy was as an educator and
president of the College of New Jersey. Dozens of his students went on to
leadership positions in the emerging United States.
The founders of the College wanted to educate men who would be “ornaments of
the State as well as the Church.” Witherspoon himself taught one president
(James Madison) and one vice president (Aaron Burr). He also instructed 9
cabinet officers, 21 senators, 39 congressmen, 3 justices of the Supreme Court,
and 12 state governors. Five of the 55 members of the Constitutional Convention
were his former students. Witherspoon’s impact on the ministry of the
Presbyterian Church was also significant. Of the 177 ministers in America in
1777, 52 of them had been Witherspoon’s students. Witherspoon established a
strong position and was firmly committed to preserving religious liberty in
America.
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Famous Quotes
“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners
make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the
rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best
constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.” – 1776
“I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any
hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of
justice, of liberty, and of human nature.” -1776
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