The American Founding is a unique and remarkable moment in human history, marking the beginning of a new order of the ages. It was the first time the people, as the only earthly source of political authority, exercised their right to establish government based on their consent. As Alexander Hamilton observed in the opening salvo of the first Federalist paper, Americans were “to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government on the basis of reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” The Founding generation understood that they were dramatis personae on the world stage, cast and called to prove the capacity of mankind for self-government. If they succeeded, the forces of despotism would never again find their ambitions unobstructed.
The Founding Era
We generally think of July Fourth as signifying the origins of our nation, and emblematically, this is surely true. According to Abraham Lincoln, though, the American Union predates the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The years 1774 through 1800 encompass the American Founding era, beginning with the Articles of Association and extending to the transfer of power from the Federalist Administration of John Adams to the new Republican President, Thomas Jefferson.
These were extraordinary years of political creativity, struggle, and institution-building. The era begins with the strife of the late colonial era and moves into the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. Acknowledging the weaknesses of the confederation under the Articles, men known as Federalists called for a convention to be held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. A few years after ratification of the Constitution and establishment of the new government with George Washington as first President, a battle between Alexander Hamilton on the one side and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on the other emerged, leading to the first political parties in America.
The 1790s tested the stability and durability of the new nation. Aaron Burr’s secessionist plot involving the New England states underscored the fragility of the Union, and Washington’s agreement to serve a second term as President provided solidity and assurance during uncertain times. Under the presidency of John Adams, however, the Alien and Sedition Acts threatened the very liberties the Revolution had sought to secure, and the election of 1800 proved a grueling test for civic cohesion in the nascent republic. In a peaceful and orderly transfer of power, Thomas Jefferson’s assumption of the presidency—dubbed the “Revolution of 1800”—reaffirmed the nation’s commitment to constitutional principles. “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,” Jefferson declared in his Inaugural Address.
The Uniqueness of the American Founding
America is part of the New World. It has no Parthenon, knights at round tables, or chosen tribes. Nevertheless, Americans have always looked to their historical origins for inspiration and guidance. There are two ways to think about the origins of polities: in time and in principle. The first is important historically; the second matters for as long as the nation exists. The American Founding is more than a chronological point in history, just as the United States is more than a geographical place. It is a body politic with a soul that defines its purpose. The Founding of the American Republic is the moment when the people declared that purpose and began the American story.
Lincoln reminds us of that purpose when he proclaimed:
All honor to Jefferson—the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.
Jefferson could have limited his words in the Declaration of Independence to the assertion of American independence from Great Britain, but he elected not to stop there. He chose to proclaim the universal truth that “all men are created equal.” These now-familiar and resonant words mark the first time in history that a people formed a political association that was not based on religion or ethnicity or an ancestry that set them apart from others, but rather was based on what they shared with all human beings at all times and in all places. It was the first time a people declared themselves a people based on the universal attributes and aspirations of humanity.
The universal inclusivity of the American Founding is what makes it and the republic it defined exceptional. The central tenet of the Declaration of Independence—that “all men are created equal”—meant that no one was excepted; no one was excluded. By “men” the Founders meant “mankind”—all human beings. All human beings are equal, and all have the right to govern themselves. This is the central meaning and purpose of the Founding, of its central declarations and documents, and of the nation’s envisioned way of life. The revolutionary principles and pursuits of the American Founders were a call to all humanity, ushering into the world an order intended to track “a new and more noble course.”
The Challenge of Self-Government
The experiment in self-government is the logical culmination of the claim that all human beings are created equal. The idea that all human beings are equal does not mean that all people are the same in every respect. It means that no human being is the natural ruler of any other human being; no human being has the right to govern another human being without that person’s consent. This is why the Declaration of Independence says that consent is necessary to the just powers of government and why the Preamble of the Constitution begins with declaring the source of its authority: “We the People.”
The proposition that all men are created equal implicitly establishes the challenge of self-government. It sets the challenge for each human being to live a life of self-mastery and for the people collectively to govern in accordance with justice and the general good. The trial of self-government, then, occurs at two different levels: at the level of the individual and at the level of society.
The political equality of all human beings is also the grounds of popular sovereignty. This sovereignty is, however, inherently limited by the same principle that makes the people sovereign in the first place: Those who have the right to rule themselves must recognize that all other human beings possess that right as well and act accordingly. In his first Inaugural Address, President Washington argued that the success of the experiment in self-government depends on the justice of our national policy, which is contingent on the morality of the individuals composing the nation:
I behold the surest pledges…that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality…. I dwell on this prospect…[s]ince we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained….
Emphasizing the finality no less than the significance of the venture awaiting his countrymen, the President added: “[a]nd since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
The Founders and Their Contributions
Who were these men and women who played the leads in the political drama to prove humanity capable of self-government? In the following pages, we highlight 16 of the American Founders, all of whom were leaders in the Revolutionary cause, the task of constitution-making, or both. We present them in terms of their general chronological contributions and offer an overview of their lives, achievements, and ideas and a representative selection of their writings and/or speeches.
We begin with George Washington, known in his lifetime as “Father of the Country.” As Matthew Spalding points out, Washington was the Founder who was indispensable. Without Washington, there would likely not have been a United States of America. When his first term of office as President was nearing completion and he contemplated returning to his farm at Mount Vernon, Jefferson wrote to him:
When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government…I felt all the magnitude of the event…. Pursuing my reflections too I knew we were some day to try to walk alone; and if the essay should be made while you should be alive & looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance, & resource if it failed.
Given the political rivalries and animosities that now agitated the public mind, however, Jefferson felt he had to ask Washington to serve another term. The young republic was not yet ready to “walk alone.”
Salvatori Professor and Scholar Harry V. Jaffa once said that “Washington was a public-spirited man before there was any public to be spirited about.” He was, in effect, America’s First Citizen. He led the cause for independence on the battlefield, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and was the unrivalled choice of Americans for first President of the United States. Washington was, indeed, “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Second to Washington in public esteem was Benjamin Franklin. The elder statesman of the Founding generation, Franklin played a critical role as diplomat, inventor-scientist, author, printer, and pundit. At home, he proffered his wit and wisdom as guides for his fellow citizens, and abroad, his political and social acumen secured crucial alliances with France. According to Steven Forde, “economic self-reliance and public-spirited citizenship” undergirded Franklin’s advice to others—and grounded his own character. For Franklin, these qualities produce a public character able to sustain a civic way of life in which liberty flourishes. This view was famously expressed by Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. When exiting the hall, a woman asked him whether America would have a monarchy or a republic. Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it,” stressing the perpetual duty of citizens to be vigilant in protecting their rights and living up to their republican duties.
Along with Washington and Franklin, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry were decisive in leading the way toward American independence from Great Britain. In his publication Common Sense, Paine rallied the colonists to see independence as a necessity rather than a distant hope. His declaration that “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind” framed the Revolution in terms of the human struggle for liberty. As Patrick Coby shows, Paine highlighted the natural, equal rights of individuals unencumbered—as the English were—by historical and hereditary “banditry” and “plunder.” According to Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry was among the most radical leaders of American resistance against British policies, displaying his skill as an orator in the fateful ultimatum he delivered to his fellow Virginians in 1775: “This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house [is] one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery…. [G]ive me liberty or give me death!”
Along with Franklin and Jefferson, John Adams was a member of the committee charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence. He was an indefatigable advocate for independence—called by one contemporary “the man to whom the country is most indebted for the great measure of independence,” as C. Bradley Thompson notes. For Adams, the American Revolution was not simply a war; it was a transformation in thought and governance. Author, diplomat, first Vice President, and Second President of the United States, Adams took pride in being both a thinker and a statesman. Even he would admit that some of his philosophical and political views unnerved his compatriots. Yet to his outspokenness he added unswerving integrity and a forgiving and conciliatory nature by which he managed to repair more than one damaged friendship over the years.
Tracing the political career of George Mason from the 1750s on, Jeff Broadwater discusses his contributions as a “learned defender of American rights” and “staunch republican.” Crafting Virginia’s Declaration of Rights within the context of human freedom and equality, Mason laid the groundwork for the central ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. An attendee and active participant at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason was one of three delegates present at the close of the convention who refused to sign the document. One can only imagine what September 17, 1787, was like for Mason and fellow dissenters Edmund Randolph of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. Having given so much of themselves to the creation of the new Constitution over those four long, uncomfortably hot months but so dissatisfied with the outcome that they could not join their friends and colleagues in the signing must have left them feeling deeply disappointed, if not completely miserable. What was going through their minds on that fateful day? Where did they go and what did they do when their fellow delegates were all assembled and celebrating at the City Tavern?
Mason’s guiding principles and expressions in the Virginia Declaration of Rights influenced Thomas Jefferson’s articulation of the philosophical foundations of the American Revolution in the central idea that “all men are created equal.” This idea and those that flowed from it were not his alone, he said, but “an expression of the American mind.” Carson Holloway claims that Jefferson’s most noted contribution to his country, the Declaration of Independence, “function[s] as a kind of touchstone of American politics, a moral standard that statesmen and citizens can consult from generation to generation, especially when grappling with issues in relation to which the nation seems to have strayed from its Founding commitments.” Jefferson’s deep commitments to religious freedom, education, and limited government can be seen throughout his life, both in his home state of Virginia and at the national level. Nonetheless, his legacy is complex, especially the contrast between his abstract defense of human rights and his personal and practical failures regarding the institution of slavery. Some choose to downplay Jefferson’s inconsistency; others consider his actions inexcusable. Holloway concludes that “[n]o one, not even his critics, can deny that to understand America fully, we must understand the political career and ideas of Thomas Jefferson.”
As Jefferson was the chief penman of the Declaration, John Dickinson was considered the “Penman of the Revolution.” In the 1770s, he sought to unify the colonies through his persuasive Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; during the next decade, he penned the thoughtful Fabius letters in support of ratification of the Constitution. Jane Calvert, Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project, presents a glowing portrait of Dickinson’s Enlightenment principles, substantial contributions, and reputation among his peers. Calvert also offers a probing assessment of the practical and ideological reasons why the man known as “Penman of the Revolution” refused to sign the Declaration of Independence.
By contrast, another staunch advocate for religious freedom, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, enthusiastically put his “John Hancock” to the Declaration of Independence—the only Catholic to sign the document. As Bradley Birzer tells us, Carroll understood that most men tend to be reluctant agents of radical change, even in the face of political oppression—that they “must overcome their own natures to reach true republican happiness.” While there is no evidence that Carroll and Dickinson were acquainted, they certainly knew of each other, and Carroll’s analysis of the reluctant revolutionary cannot help but bring John Dickinson to mind.
Neither hesitant nor halting, Mercy Otis Warren was a leading and forceful voice for American independence, setting forth the principles of equality, liberty, and inalienable rights in a variety of genres, including history, prose, plays, and poetry. In her discussion of Warren and her work, Brenda Hafera vividly shows us her classical educational background and fiery spiritedness. Friends or acquaintances with a great many contemporaries showcased in this volume, Warren carried on an active correspondence about principles, politics, and life with several of them. However, her ardent opposition to the Constitution in 1787–1788 because of her perception of its insufficient safeguards for individual rights became a cause of dissension between her and those who adopted the Federalist mantle. Among those with whom she took issue were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, the pseudonymous authors of The Federalist Papers. Her robust opposition to the Constitution for its lack of a bill of rights has led one contemporary scholar to call her the “Secret Muse of the Bill of Rights.” During the Washington Administration, Warren joined forces with the Republicans in opposition to the Federalists, causing a fallout with old friends, especially Washington and the Adamses (both John and Abigail).
James Madison has traditionally been known as the “Father of the Constitution” and as one of the most scholarly of the Founding generation. He is also remembered for his practical political leadership, including his service in the continental, state, and national legislatures, as Secretary of State under Jefferson, and as fourth President of the United States. As a political thinker and scholar, Madison is best known for the solution to the problem of majority factionalism that he claimed to find in America’s extended republic. More than any of the other Founders, Madison devoted his life to thinking through the political philosophy of republicanism, determined to find a way to solve its challenges and achieve its aims in the new world.
Given his brilliant mind, depth of philosophical and legal thoughtfulness, and substantial contributions to the framing and exposition of the Constitution, combined with the fact that few Americans know anything at all about him, James Wilson of Pennsylvania is probably the most unjustly neglected of the Founding Fathers. Wilson emphasized the idea that government derives its power from the people and that they must play a part in the ordinary governing processes of a republic. At the Constitutional Convention, he, Madison, and Hamilton worked together to defeat the New Jersey Plan in a kind of “one-two-three punch” from June 15–18, 1787. As Hadley Arkes argues, Wilson’s views, including especially the expression of them in his Lectures on Law, still serve as an anchor for the first principles and permanent things that form the grounds of free and republican government.
Gouverneur Morris served on the Committee of Style and drafted much of the Constitution’s final text, including the Preamble. He was a strong advocate for national unity and a fierce and outspoken opponent of slavery, delivering an animated speech denouncing the institution of slavery as the “curse of Heaven” at the Constitutional Convention. One can easily imagine him dramatically raising his arms in divine supplication and stamping his peg leg on the floor for emphasis! Morris and his good friend, Alexander Hamilton, both attended King’s College (now Columbia University) and shared many of the same concerns regarding the need for a stronger national government and an upper house composed of the “better sorts,” as J. Jackson Barlow so assiduously shows. They also enjoyed one another’s sociable characters and keen wit. The episode of the dare between them at the Convention is an example of their camaraderie—and perhaps of their shared propensity for adventure and risk-taking. According to the story, Hamilton dared Morris to walk over to the reserved and highly respected Washington and casually slap him on the shoulder. Morris accepted the dare, at which performance Washington looked Morris directly in the eye with a serious countenance and grave stare, causing Morris to retreat, embarrassed and sheepish. It was a dare accepted and one that Morris vowed never to repeat.
Alexander Hamilton was nothing short of a financial genius, ably serving as the first Secretary of the Treasury in the Washington Administration. Prior to this, he served his adopted country (he was born in the West Indies) as Washington’s aide-de-camp during the Revolution. Between the two there existed a close personal relationship, their difference in age making them more like father and son than bosom friends (and perhaps even more so because Washington had no natural children and Hamilton was, as John Adams once brashly put it, “the bastard brat of a Scotch Pedler”). Hamilton’s life was short and colorful, with nary an insipid interval. He had good friends and strong enemies, the latter including not only Burr, but Adams and Jefferson. It is not surprising that of all the Founders, he is the one for whom a very popular and successful Broadway musical has been created.
The contributions made by John Jay, co-author with Hamilton and Madison of The Federalist and first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, span the fields of politics, foreign policy, diplomacy, and law. Former John Jay Institute Director Greg Schaller explores Jay’s chief concerns and commitments: “the establishment of a strong national government, the need for unity amidst the people and the states, and the providential guidance which ultimately created a moral mandate to secure its preservation.” The last of these was for Jay the ultimate mandate issued to the new nation; second to this was the challenge of self-government.
Probably America’s most influential Supreme Court justice, John Marshall wrote the majority opinion in Marbury v. Madison, asserting that “a constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law.” In his essay, John Malcolm delineates the contours of Marshall’s legal mind, showing him to be an ardent nationalist and brilliant, innovative constitutionalist. In addition to writing the majority opinions in numerous highly influential court cases, including McCulloch v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden, Fletcher v. Peck, and Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Marshall authored the prestigious five-volume Life of George Washington, which captured the tumultuous political battles between the Federalists and Republicans in the early republic.
All of these people played significant roles in founding the American Republic. They were leaders in the political forum of action and ideas. They had a vision for America—a story they had written in their minds’ imagination before they imprinted it upon the land. How it turned out, we know. But they did not and could not know. In his Lyceum Address, Abraham Lincoln reminded us that during the Founding era, the American experiment was undecided: There was no guarantee that it would succeed. But the Founders were undeterred:
Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it:—their destiny was as inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best no better, than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves.
“If they succeeded,” Lincoln contended, “they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties and cities, and rivers and mountains; and to be revered and sung, and toasted through all time.” But should they fail, they would be “called knaves and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten.”
“They succeeded,” Lincoln said. “The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so.”
They succeeded—but this does not mean that the work was completed. Each new generation must take up the challenge of self-government, breathing new life into the old words, renewed spirit into the old cause. Lincoln said the Founders’ names would be writ upon landmarks and monuments across the land, and so they are: Washington, D.C.; the Jefferson Memorial; Hamilton College; Madison Avenue; Franklin and Marshall University, to name but a few. But the Founders knew, as Lincoln knew, that their work was “unfinished,” that succeeding generations must step up to the challenge if government of, by, and for the people is not to “perish from the earth.”
The Founding as Our Heritage and Guide
Events shape ideas, but they do not determine the future. Real people dedicated to real things are always the driving force behind preservation and change in politics and human affairs. The American Founders were an exceptional generation who lived in exceptional times. As Washington said of the “Citizens of America” in his circular letter to the states in June 1783, they were “Actors, on a most conspicuous Theatre” whose actions would decide the fate of millions yet unborn.
The notion that all human beings have the right to liberty and self-responsibility is not an old idea; it is an eternal idea. These aspirations were the glue that held Americans together in the past and are the bonds that make us one people and give us hope for the future. There has never been a time in the history of our country in which defining our common cause was more needed than it is today. Our nation is fractured and troubled, unsure of its future path, unsure whether it has a real future. The question of whether to reclaim the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution or to reject them and adopt a new vision of human and political life is part of the raging political controversy of our time. It reveals itself in various policy battles, including those over abortion, marriage, and the administrative state. The forces behind these battles are insistent and demanding as Americans attempt to navigate life in a broken land.
Today, there are some who want to tear down monuments to the Founders—the tributes Lincoln anticipated as so justly deserved—because they think that the Founders and what they stood for deserve our unmitigated contempt. We at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies see it differently. We try to look with honest eyes at our country’s past, and we choose to bring all that is good and just forward in order to continue the story that may one day include new monuments and new memories. We pay the sacrifices of our ancestors forward when we rededicate ourselves to the cause for which they lived and fought.
At the heart of our nation’s origins is both a proposition and a promise. Each American makes that promise, whether explicitly as the Founders did or tacitly as later generations have done. Each citizen enters into the social compact with his fellow citizens based on the truth of human equality, thereby promising to treat each other with the respect due to beings capable of self-government. With rights and freedoms, then, come responsibilities—to respect the humanity of others, to govern with measure and restraint, and to keep the promises we make.
This is what Martin Luther King, Jr., meant when he spoke of the nation’s Founding documents as our “promissory note.” The principles of the Declaration and the Constitution are our hope and the inspiration for that hope. And as these maxims become part of who we are and how we live, we become, in the truest and best sense, American.
This is why we study the American Founding and why the Founding still matters today.
Colleen A. Sheehan
