Eric Perez Blog 2

 Eric Perez

Blog Post #2

The Founding Fathers are the men who put our government together and started our

country’ government. Here are important facts about the men who helped shape our

identity as a nation.

There are seven main people known as the core Founding Fathers: George

Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton,

John Jay, and James Madison. Even though a ton of people helped build the U.S.,

these seven are usually the ones who get the credit. They all played huge roles in

winning independence from Great Britain and setting up the U.S. government.

That being said, there are plenty of other founding figures. While the main seven did a

lot of the heavy lifting, dozens of others played smaller but super important roles—like

George Mason, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, John Marshall, and Samuel Adams. Plus,

56 people signed the Declaration of Independence and 39 signed the Constitution.

Women were a big part of it too, like Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren.

Every single Founding Father brought something different to the table. While everyone

knows what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson did, a ton of other people

shaped the country through their writing, ideas, and actions. Some fought, some wrote,

and some ran for office, but they all contributed.

Of the Founding Fathers who became president, only George Washington did not go to

college. John Adams graduated from Harvard, James Madison graduated from

Princeton, and Thomas Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary.

If you want to actually understand American ideas like freedom and liberty, you have to

study these guys. They basically pulled off what Europe could only dream of doing.

Figuring out how they actually made it happen is a huge part of American history, and

their work still impacts the whole world today.

Even though they worked together, it is a known fact that the Founding Fathers

constantly argued with each other. People today talk about them like they were one big

group that agreed on everything, but they actually had completely different views on the

federal government, slavery, and how extreme the Revolution should be. Sometimes

their arguments literally ruined friendships and almost tore the country apart.

Most of the Founding Fathers were actually pretty young when they started the country.

We always picture them as old guys with white wigs and fake teeth, but a lot of them

were in their 30s and 40s. Thomas Jefferson was only 33 when he wrote the

Declaration of Independence, and Alexander Hamilton was 33 when he became

Secretary of the Treasury. James Madison was 36 at the Constitutional Convention, and

Washington was 43 when he took command of the army. Ben Franklin was the only

older person involved in the constitutional process of our nation, he was 70.

George Mason, Edmund Randolph, and Elbridge Gerry refused to sign the Constitution

because they believed it to be flawed, despite the fact that they helped write it. Mason

suggested adding a bill of rights to preface the document but was denied. Later, James

Madison introduced an official Bill of Rights based on Mason’s original idea.

A common mistake made by many is the assumption that Benjamin Franklin was

President of the United States. The fact is, unlike his contemporaries George

Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Franklin never held the office of the

presidency. He was the governor of Pennsylvania, the first United States ambassador to

France and Sweden and the first ever United States Postmaster General. Among his

many other talents, he was a skilled chess player. He was inducted into the United

States Chess Hall of Fame in 1999. He wrote a well-known essay, “The Morals of

Chess” that detailed the rules of conduct for playing the game and was responsible for

making chess a popular sport in America. While many people often associate Ben

Franklin with Philadelphia, he was born in Boston, baptized in the Old South Meeting

House and attended Boston Latin School.

Thomas Jefferson helped popularize ice cream in America. He was the first to serve it at

the White House, and the first known American recipe for the sweet treat is written in

Jefferson’s handwriting. Jefferson was also a big fan of macaroni noodles and spread

the love for potatoes and tomatoes among his countrymen. Before Jefferson, many

people still believed them to be poisonous due to being part of the ‘nightshade’ family of

plants.

The term & '

Founding Fathers' wasn't even a thing until much later. People use it all the

time now, but the phrase didn't really get popular until the 29th president, Warren G.

Harding, started using it in his speeches around the late 1910s and early 1920s.

 Harding mentioned it in his acceptance speech at the 1920 Republican National

Convention when he said, “It was the intent of the founding fathers to give this Republic

a dependable and enduring popular government.” By that time, the original Founding

Fathers had all passed away.

Three Founding Fathers passed away on July 4, as this marks America’s adoption of

the Declaration of Independence, signaling our breakaway from England and the

formation of the United States. Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the

50th anniversary of this day in 1826, and James Monroe died on July 4, 1831.

Many of the founders were worried that future generations wouldn't be able to keep the

country together. Just like older generations today, they weren't sure if the people

coming after them would actually protect the freedom they fought for. Right after signing

the Constitution, someone asked Ben Franklin if they made a monarchy or a republic,

and he famously said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The Founding Fathers definitely weren’t perfect. Even though they built a brand new

type of government, they had major flaws. Almost half of them owned slaves, and all of

them profited off the system of slavery. The nation they built basically only protected the

rights of white, property-owning men, and it took nearly 200 years of fighting to get

those same protections for everyone else.

Many of the Founding Fathers kept beloved pets, many of which had some weird

names. George Washington’s foxhounds were called Drunkard, Tipsy, and Tippler. John

Adams’ dogs were named Juno and Satan. Robert Morris owned a legendarily loyal

spaniel. While Morris was dying, the dog refused to leave his bedside and later lay

down beside his body and died. Morris and his beloved pet were buried on the same

day. Thomas Jefferson owned a menagerie of pets. He not only kept several dogs and

horses, he kept two grizzly bear cubs in a cage on the White House lawn. Jefferson also

doted over his pet mockingbird and let him fly freely and eat chewed food from his

mouth.

This small group of guys basically took all the best political ideas of their time and

turned them into a real government designed to limit federal power, protect citizens, and

give people a voice. They literally risked their lives and fortunes to make it happen, and

those are the same ideals we still value today and left a massive legacy that changed

world history.