The Founding Fathers: Perspective on Their Roles
As I have already said in previous posts, the names we usually associate with the term “founding father” are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.
These Founders have been termed the “key founders” by many, with the addition of several others to the list: Gouverneur Morris (the penman of the Constitution), James Wilson (influential delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), Samuel Adams (the “father of the American Revolution” and signer of the Declaration), Patrick Henry (leading patriot, orator of the Revolution who stimulated the country to resist Britain’s military force), George Mason (influential delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and the “father of the Bill of Rights”), Reverend John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration and the trainer and tutor of several Founders, including Madison; also largely responsible for influencing New Jersey to pursue independence from Great Britain, according to Elias Boudinot), Roger Sherman (one of the five original framers of the Declaration of Independence, signer of that document, signer and framer of the Articles of Confederation, signer and influential framer of the Constitution, and famous for the Great Compromise, which forged the creation of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives) and the list could go on even longer.
Something that is worth noticing about the “unknowns” named above:
Most of them were most probably Bible-believing Christians. Most of the “well-known” Founders were either non-believers or probably not Christians (Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and probably Madison, who is a difficult character to asses due to his reservation and silence on Christianity in later years).
Of the well-known key Founders, Jefferson and Franklin are the Founders with which the average citizen is the most acquainted. But after studying the writings of the Founders in general, I think that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin cannot be labeled as “completely indispensable to the Founding,” though their accomplishments were key. The reason for my statement is that I have found that Jefferson and Franklin held the least in common politically and religiously with the rest of the Founding Fathers.
This is especially the case with Thomas Jefferson. Pre-1780s, Jefferson did not have to many problems with the rest of his fellow-founders (though he was criticized by Washington and Patrick Henry for fleeing from the enemy and giving up the capitol of Virginia without a fight, when the British advanced upon it when Jefferson was state governor). Most of his beliefs do not reflect much alienation from what the other Founders held (and Jefferson was not much devoted to politics and public life during this time anyway).
However, when Jefferson went on a voyage to France after receiving a commission from the Continental Congress appointing him as American ambassador to France, Jefferson spent many years there, and apparently absorbed much of the French Enlightenment philosophy “in religion, in science, in politics.” (1) When he returned to the United States, many of the Founding Fathers alienated themselves from his politics, particularly his democratic tendencies, his pro-France foreign policy, and his deism. It is already well-known that he found such political adversaries in Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and even his best friend John Adams. His politics also repulsed Noah Webster, Patrick Henry, Gouverneur Morris, and even George Washington (towards the end of Washington’s presidential term).
Thomas Jefferson had more faith in the reason and goodness of man, and of the “common man” in particular, than did any of the other Founders. His beliefs about the role of religious expression in the federal and state governments differed widely from those of his co-Founders. Jefferson’s beliefs on “state sovereignty,” though somewhat accepted by a few of the Founders (George Mason, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee), nevertheless denied the purpose of the Constitution, as a substitute for the Articles of Confederation. The Founding Fathers did not envision a metropolitan America, full of big crowded cities, but they did not envision the “agrarian utopia” that Jefferson talked about (he probably got this idea from French philosopher Rousseau). Jefferson’s maxim was equivalent to “government that governs least governs best.” This, however, was not the motto of the majority of the framers of the Constitution. Their maxim was “government that governs justly governs best.” Most of the Founding Fathers leaned toward the Biblical view of government and mankind, Jefferson was perhaps the most humanistic in his beliefs. He supported the public expression of religion, and he saw it as useful and essential to all forms of republican government, but this in no wise implies that Jefferson was in agreement with Christianity. In one letter, he gave his true beliefs on religious philosophy to a private friend. The tenets he details are not at all difficult to reconcile with deism. Abigail Adams, who once had been a close friend and confidante of his, even wrote a letter labeling Jefferson as closer to a deist in his creed.
And yet, in spite of all these facts, Jefferson is treated as the “demigod of our democracy” and the great American philosopher. And yet his philosophy was unique among the Founders!
Benjamin Franklin probably had more in common with the Founding Fathers philosophically and politically (because he WAS the common man, and knew them up-front; he therefore had a very un-Jeffersonian optimism about the inherent goodness of man in general). But Franklin’s contributions come largely in the form of his literary accomplishments. We do not remember Franklin for his great insights into history, and how to frame a republican government based upon republican principle. We remember Franklin for his humorous wisdom and practical sayings that affect us day-to-day. Franklin held public offices on the state and national level, and helped draft the Declaration of Independence, the Pennsylvania state constitution, and the United States Constitution. But he never wrote immensely on the subject of government, or what made republics work, whereas other Founders did, and thereby had a greater role in shaping our political philosophy.
Franklin and Jefferson both had a hand in our founding, but others did more. Others dedicated themselves to forming their government, not their print shops, plantations, and gardens (not that those things are of little or no value or significance). In the following posts, we shall look at the views and accomplishments of those Founders who did more, whose names have not been presented in our textbooks for approximately forty years. We will look at these Founders three at a time in each post. First, we shall examine a few “little-knowns” from Virginia.
2 Responses to “The Founding Fathers: Perspective on Their Roles”
October 13th, 2008 at 1:26 am
I don’t know, HM if your claims truly work. In particular I find your claims about Thomas Jefferson to be a bit off.
If the metric is the writings or actions of the founder, then your judgment is unfair. I mean, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In practical terms, this outweighs the political influence of every other person on the list, save James Madison and other key framers. If one were to compare Jefferson’s impact and influence with Adam’s for example, you would be hard pressed to conclude that Adams did more to articulate the rebels’ position during the revolution or to shape public opinion on political matters after the Constitutional Convention than Jefferson did.
On the other hand, if the metric is the political philosphy (and how far it deviates from the average of the time) of the founder being examined, I also find your judgement to be unfair. After all, can you call Hamilton’s ideas about the Executive power or the Treasury in accordance with most of the fellow founders?
~T. Greer, with the opinion that John Marshall was a key founder in our nation’s history.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hello T. Greer. Welcome to my blog, and thanks for leaving your very thoughtful comment.
It’s an interesting rebuttal you propose, and so just to let you know that I haven’t forgotten it, I am letting you know here in advance, that I will write a post on this blog, in response. At the immediate moment, I can’t tackle it now, but it will be on the way soon! Please stay tuned!
Thanks again.
Hercules
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