Omar Bennett
The Founding Fathers of the United States include those who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. The Constitution was signed by 38 delegates on September 17, 1787, with an additional signature added on behalf of an absent delegate, bringing the total to 39. The Founding Fathers were wary of centralized power and created a powerful central government. They also feared foreign influence and sought to protect against it in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers made efforts to contain slavery, with slaves referred to as persons held in service or labor in the Constitution.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Number of delegates who signed the Constitution | 38 |
| Total number of signatures | 39 |
| Date the Constitution was signed | September 17, 1787 |
| Number of key documents signed by the Founding Fathers | 3 |
| Number of Founding Fathers who signed all 4 major founding documents | 1 |
| Number of delegates who refused to sign the Constitution | 3 |
| Number of delegates who left the convention early | 13 |
| Number of delegates who attended the convention | 55 |
| Number of Founding Fathers identified by historian Richard B. Morris as key founders | 7 |
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What You'll Learn
The Founding Fathers' fears of foreign influence
The Founding Fathers of the United States were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States of America, and crafted a framework of government for the new nation. The Founding Fathers include those who wrote and signed the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States.
The Founding Fathers feared the influence of foreign powers on their young democracy. They had only recently broken free from the British Empire and were anxious about the possibility of another empire taking over. They knew that they had to protect their new republic from deep-pocketed interests and old alliances from Europe. As such, they built safeguards against foreign influence as a corrupting force into the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers believed that people were driven by their private ambitions and thirst for more power or money, and that these motivations could lead to corruption. They understood that a president under the influence of a foreign nation would be dangerous and intolerable, given the power granted to the executive branch by Article II of the Constitution. To guard against this, the Founding Fathers included two key provisions in the Constitution: the "emoluments clause" and the power to impeach a president.
The Founding Fathers also debated federal intervention in the economy and foreign policy, as well as the relationship between federal and state governments. They argued over how much authority rested with the executive branch and how to protect against federal overreach. These discussions were often bitter and partisan, reflecting the diverse beliefs and priorities of the Founding Fathers.
Figures such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison feared federal overreach and pushed back against Alexander Hamilton's support for a strong central government. Jefferson, while serving as Washington's Secretary of State, opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which jailed critics, and wrote the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, arguing that states could defy unjust laws. Madison, the principal author of the Bill of Rights, was originally opposed to the amendments but was influenced by the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
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The Founding Fathers' views on slavery
During the era of the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789), the Founding Fathers exhibited some aversion to slavery by prohibiting the importation of foreign slaves to individual states and supporting a proposal to ban slavery in the Northwest Territory. However, these policies served the interests of Virginia and Maryland slaveholders and tacitly legitimized the expansion of slavery in the Southwest. The Founding Fathers also made compromises to maintain the unity of the new nation, granting slave-holding states the right to count three-fifths of their slave population for representation in Congress while also using this ratio to determine their federal tax contribution.
The economy's reliance on slavery and the deep-seated racial prejudice of Southern Founders posed significant obstacles to emancipation. As slavery continued to expand and grow in the Deep South, it contributed to the economic, political, and social divide between the North and South, leading to heated debates and ultimately, the Civil War in 1861. While the Founding Fathers' views on slavery were complex and influenced by the context of their time, their inability to address the issue remains a shortcoming that has been scrutinized and debated by scholars and the public alike.
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The Founding Fathers' views on congressional representation
The Founding Fathers of the United States were among the wealthiest people in the colonies when they drafted and signed the Constitution. They expected that only the wealthy and educated would have the right to vote, while the common people, the poor and uneducated, would participate indirectly through local government, town halls, meetings, and protests. They believed that state legislatures were becoming too radical and beholden to the interests of the common man, and that they needed to be more accommodating to the wealthy.
The Founding Fathers established a system where only the House of Representatives would be popularly elected by the people. The Electoral College would choose the president, the commander-in-chief would select the Supreme Court justices, and senators would be chosen by state legislatures. They included these constraints in the Constitution to limit the direct participation of a large group of people in the political process, particularly those they deemed "ignorant" or poor.
The Founding Fathers envisioned a nation where unity, order, and economic strength were paramount. They wanted to ensure that the interests, feelings, opinions, and views of the people were represented, but they also wanted to maintain a certain level of control and prevent populism and mob rule. They saw representation as a complex issue that touched on popular consent, republicanism, constitutional limits, federalism, majority rule, minority rights, property, and equality.
While the Founding Fathers may not have envisioned the exact form of democracy that exists today, they did write a process into the Constitution for changing or amending it. They recognised that their creation of a general framework could be open to change, and they availed themselves of that process with the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804, which established separate Electoral College votes.
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The Founding Fathers' views on state legislature
The Founding Fathers of the United States were a group of predominantly wealthy plantation owners and businessmen who united 13 disparate colonies, fought for independence from Britain, and penned a series of influential governing documents that steer the country to this day. There is no official consensus on who should be considered a Founding Father, and some historians object to the term altogether. However, it is generally applied to those leaders who initiated the Revolutionary War and framed the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers played a crucial role in shaping the relationship between state and federal governments in the newly formed United States. Their efforts to balance state and national powers resulted in the establishment of federalism as a guiding principle in the country's governance. The first constitution created by the Founding Fathers, the Articles of Confederation, vested almost all power in individual state legislatures, with very little power given to the national government. This led to political chaos and crippling debt, threatening the stability of the young nation.
Recognizing the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation, the Founding Fathers met again in Philadelphia in 1787 and drafted a new Constitution that introduced a novel separation of state and national powers. This new framework, known as federalism, aimed to safeguard Americans against tyranny while providing a check on rogue states. Federalism became an important check and balance in the US political system, even though it has also been a continual source of contention between state and federal governments.
Under the Constitution, state legislatures retained significant autonomy to pass laws as they saw fit. However, the federal government was also granted the power to intervene when it was in the national interest. The supremacy clause in Article VI of the Constitution established that federal laws and statutes supersede state law. This dynamic between state and federal powers was a delicate balance that the Founding Fathers sought to achieve, ensuring that neither level of government accrued excessive power.
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The Founding Fathers who signed the Constitution
The Founding Fathers of the United States were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States of America, and crafted a framework for the new government. The Founding Fathers include those who wrote and signed the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution.
The US Constitution defines the framework of the Federal Government of the United States. The Founding Fathers who signed the Constitution include:
- George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and later president of the Constitutional Convention.
- John Adams, who served as the second vice president and second president of the United States.
- Thomas Jefferson, who served as the first vice president and third president of the United States. He was also the first secretary of state.
- James Madison, who was a member of the Virginia state legislature and later a delegate to the Continental Congress. He became the fourth president of the United States and is known as the "Father" of the US Constitution.
- Benjamin Franklin, who was America's most senior diplomat from the start of the Revolutionary War through to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
In total, 39 delegates signed the US Constitution.
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Frequently asked questions
The Founding Fathers of the United States include those who wrote and signed the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. Some of the key Founding Fathers are George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.
The Founding Fathers made some efforts to contain slavery. For example, slaves are referred to as "persons held in service or labor" in the Constitution. However, it is important to note that many of them were wealthy slave-owners.
The Founding Fathers had just broken free from British rule, and they knew that foreign power could influence their young democracy. Thus, they built safeguards against foreign influence as a corrupting force into the Constitution. For example, the "emoluments clause" bars American presidents, ambassadors, and elected representatives from accepting gifts or titles of nobility from any foreign power.
No, not all the Founding Fathers agreed with the Constitution. There was little agreement about what form the government would take. One of the fiercest arguments was over congressional representation. Three of the Founding Fathers, Randolph, Mason, and Gerry, refused to sign the Constitution.
