American Revolution Thoughts, List Item 1a

A related list item to Anabaptism that I forgot last time: The Schleitheim Confession was a declaration of Swiss Anabaptist belief in 1527. That Baptism should only be administered to adults who could understand what they were undertaking was the main tenet, with non-violence and refusal to take oaths also being included.

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I just recently finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington "His Excellency", and I really liked it. Ellis really brought the man alive for me. This was read in a continuation of a general revival of interest in the Revolutionary Generation. When returning "His Excellency" I checked out the McCullough biography of John Adams, as well as a recent biography of Abigail Adams. In line with all of this, it just seems proper that I post a list!

Top 5 Founding Fathers

5. Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis is almost solely responsible for turning my opinion about Jefferson. A couple of years ago, he might have been at the top of my list instead of the bottom. His radical, revolutionary rhetoric is right up my alley, and judging him just by the Declaration of Independence, his theories of the earth belonging to the living, and how a government should be overturned about once a generation he's my kind of guy. His duplicitous nature and his role in bringing about the Party Wars, the way he betrayed Washington and Adams (and then refused to acknowledge doing so), really turned my opinion of him.

4. Alexander Hamilton - Likewise. I can respect him for his genius (arguably the most genius of all the Founders) and his pragmatic nature. But his part in the Party Wars and his...well...his insanity and his insatiable ambition and appetite for power were his downfall. He ranks slightly above Jefferson because he never made any attempt to hide his nature nor made any apologies for it, but the potential he wasted away is mind boggling. Imagine how much could have been accomplished had he and Jefferson put their heads together instead of butted them constantly.

3. George Washington - What is there to say about Washington? He made a career of giving up power when no one expected him to do so. He could have been the American Napoleon at the end of the Revolution, he could have been King for life after having been elected, but he wisely realized that relinquishing power would set him apart from almost all other men in his position throughout history. And he was right. He is third because I have an affinity for philosophical men rather than military men, but my respect for the man is not slight.

2. John Adams - I'm just another part of the John Adams revival that we're in the middle of going through. Adams' learning, his philosophy, his relationship with his life, his revolutionary virtues...I love it all. It was unfair that history focused so much on people like Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington because their personalities and places in the Revolution were easier to pigeonhole, and it's especially unfair that Adams recognized while he was still alive that that was the way it was going to go down. Thankfully that's being remedied.

1. Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin was simply a pimp. The ultimate self-made man, anything this guy set his sights on he accomplished. He was amazingly progressive for his time, he was funny as hell, he was one of the smartest men to ever live, he was like a walking aphrodisiac for the ladies (even if he didn't sleep with very many), and he was always rose above the petty squabbling and hypocrisies of his peers.

Honorable Mention: John Dickinson - I have a fondness for this guy because he's often painted as almost villainous (in the John Adams miniseries, in 1776) because he was so ardently against declaring independence. But he argued against the war for religious reasons (he was a Quaker, and thus staunchly against War) and out of interest in the safety of his fellow Americans (the idea of fighting the revolutionary war still seems like suicide today, even though we know that they won). He wanted independence in a less violent way. He argued till the bitter end, then abstained himself when it became apparent that everyone else was going to vote for Independence...then when it was declared he jumped on a horse and went off to lead a militia. You've got to respect a man so staunch in his beliefs, yet so ardent in his belief in the American cause. In fact, his revolutionary credentials outshone pretty much everyone, including everyone on my list. He was one of the very, very few people involved from the very beginning of the revolution to the very end. He was a major player in the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention. When he died Jefferson wrote of him, "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."

Dickinson proves the exception the the general rule of the American struggle for independence: that rule being that there were three waves, each borne of separate ideas about America and independence, and that the main players of one wave rarely contributed to the others. The first wave, beginning around 1764, was that of the initial agitators. People like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who were probably considered to be terrorists by the English. These were the very first people to call for independence from Britain. Sam Adams, John Dickinson, John Hancock, Caesar Rodney, several others...these were men who had been agitating for a decade, these were the most respected delegates at the Continental Congresses. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin...these guys were either complete unknowns (Jefferson), or absolute newcomers to the cause (Franklin had been a complete supporter and a RESIDENT of England until a few months before). Men like Hancock were made president of the Continental Congress, Sam Adams was an honored delegate; the men of the first wave were given the cushy, prestigious positions, while the newcomers became symbols of the War.

At the end of the war, those with the lengthiest revolutionary credentials again were given the choicest positions. Sam Adams became governor of Massachusetts, John Dickinson became president of Delaware (and Pennsylvania), etc. The major newcomers (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) were given some pretty good jobs as well, but nothing of that caliber. All the major players of the first two waves had been justly rewarded and were busy with the business of running their new government, secure in their place in history.

Unfortunately for them, some even newer newcomers(Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) were convinced that the Revolution wasn't quite over yet. They staged what was essentially a coup, and replaced the existing government entirely. Most of the major players in the first wave were either long out of public business or at the heights of power, the chief players of the second wave were either across the pond (Adams in England, Jefferson in France) or figureheads (Washington was president of the Constitutional Congress and hardly said a word, Franklin was a participant but was nearly eighty years old at this point), and it was Hamilton and Madison who did all the major legwork and they eventually reaped the rewards.

Ironically, of the people most responsible for the Revolution, those men who initially rebelled against the Empire and worked for over a decade to turn public support against the British, which resulted in the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution, not a single one is remembered as one of the chief Founding Fathers. Most are hardly remembered at all.