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John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
by George Dillard via Looking Through The Past on May 21, 2025
Painting imagining Washington shaking hands with Lincoln in front of liberty's flame.

Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day

At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.
by Livia Gershon, Jeffrey J. Malanson via JSTOR Daily on February 12, 2025
Drawings of King George III and George Washington.

Parallel Lives

King George and George Washington, featured in an upcoming exhibit.
by Julie Miller via Library of Congress Blog on February 6, 2025
Elon Musk reacts on stage during a rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden.

America’s Decline & Fall

The founders anticipated someone like Trump partly because they’d been reading Edward Gibbon’s 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'
by Jim Sleeper via Commonweal on November 24, 2024
George Washington

Drink Like a Founding Father

Make one of President George Washington's favorite cocktails.
by Diana Hubbell via Atlas Obscura on October 21, 2024
Continental Congress voting for independence.

Mother’s Milk of the Revolution

Right from the beginning, a commercial spirit and the wealth it generated were essential to creating and constituting America.
by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on March 7, 2024
Colonists in front of the Old State House in Boston.

‘King Hancock’ Review: The Biggest Name in Boston

More than an artful calligrapher, John Hancock forswore the austerity of his fellow Bostonians, and their extremism.
by William Anthony Hay via The Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2023
Discolored painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Here Are 10 Shockingly Radical Things the Founding Fathers Said

The Founding Fathers made startlingly progressive statements that didn’t make it into popular history.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on July 4, 2023
Ron DeSantis's head photoshopped onto the body of a revolutionary war soldier.

Ron DeSantis’s Context-Free History Book Vanished Online. We Got A Copy.

Ron DeSantis, who has attacked Florida history lessons and aims to run for president, dismisses slavery in his 2011 book as a “personal flaw” of the Founding Fathers.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on May 21, 2023
A painting of the American Founders at the Constitutional Convention.

Inventing American Constitutionalism

On "Power and Liberty," a condensed version of Gordon Wood's entire sweep of scholarship about constitutionalism.
by Gordon S. Wood, Brian A. Smith via Law & Liberty on March 10, 2023
Samuel Adams.

Hanged on a Venerable Elm

The shadow of Samuel Adams, a crafty and government-wary revolutionary, lingers over the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
by Colin Kidd via London Review of Books on January 25, 2023
Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court holding signs with "Let us pray" and "young women for America."
partner

2022 Saw Conservative Gains on Education Issues. But They May Be Short-lived.

Conservatives’ veneration for the founders opens the door for a secular vision for America’s public schools.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on December 30, 2022
Painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. By John Turnbull, 1818.

Why the American Founding Must Remain Central to Conservatism

An American conservatism which subtly or directly marginalizes the Founding is on a fast track to a conservatism at odds with America’s roots itself.
by Samuel Gregg via National Review on February 6, 2022
Painting of the constitutional convention

Federalism and the Founders

The question of how to balance state and national power was perhaps the single most important and most challenging question confronting the early republic.
by Allen C. Guelzo via National Affairs on January 7, 2022
Sketch of the ‘Rising Sun’ design carved in the armchair used by George Washington during the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

A Rising or Setting Sun

A review of how Dennis Rasmussen understands America's Founding Fathers and their disillusions with the American experiment.
by Kenly Stewart via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 9, 2021
William Burnet meeting with Native American leadership

The Native American Roots of the U.S. Constitution

The Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee, and other political formations generally separated military and civil leadership and guarded certain personal freedoms.
by Robert J. Miller, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on September 15, 2021
Black and white photo of four children holding hands and dressed up in 18th century outfits

A Surprising Factor Influenced How the Framers Voted

The more sons a Founding Father had, the more supportive he was of a strong centralized government.
by Soren J. Schmidt, Jeremy C. Pope via The Atlantic on July 7, 2021
Illustrated portrait of George Washington above portraits of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adamas

The Founders Flounder: Adams Agonistes

Why John Adams was peculiarly unsuited to the moment.
by Michael Liss via 3 Quarks Daily on May 24, 2021
Detail from the painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy, featuring Franklin and Hamilton.

The Founders' Moral Mind Was Revolutionary, and Free

A new history sees the authors of the Declaration as moral agents, and sets out to capture the thinking behind the principles.
by Bradley J. Birzer via The American Conservative on April 2, 2020
George Washington statue at Federal Hall

The Next Lost Cause

Why the slope from toppling Confederate monuments to shunning the Founders is so slippery.
by Michael Brendan Dougherty via National Review on November 1, 2017
Painting of the signing of the Constitution.

The Gun Argument That’s Not Even Wrong

Why the “Founders’ Intent” doesn’t matter.
by Yonatan Zunger via NewCo Shift on October 2, 2017

Hawks vs. Doves — Which Side Would the Founding Fathers Have Taken?

Expansionism, and sending the military into others' lands, is a critical component of American republicanism, and a factor in independence itself.
by William Hogeland via Los Angeles Times on June 4, 2017

How the ‘Hamilton Effect’ Distorts the Founders

Too often, we look to history not to understand it, but to seek out confirmation for our preexisting beliefs. That’s a problem.
by Mike Lee via Politico Magazine on May 30, 2017

Divided We Fall

We need a radical solution to avert the disintegration of our political system.
by Ganesh Sitaraman via The New Republic on April 10, 2017

Let’s Not Pretend That ‘Hamilton’ Is History

America's founders have never enjoyed more sex appeal, but the hit Musical cheats audiences by making democracy look easy
by Nancy Isenberg via Zócalo Public Square on March 17, 2017

The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame

On the origins of racial exclusion in the society that would become the United States of America.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on January 19, 2017

Were the Framers Democrats?

Review of The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution, by Michael J. Klarman.
by Cass R. Sunstein via The New Rambler on October 31, 2016

Jefferson: Hero or Villain? It’s Complicated.

An interview with Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf.
by Annette Gordon-Reed, Richard Kreitner, Peter S. Onuf via Boston Review on May 19, 2016

Bellatrix and the American Revolution

240 years after the American Revolution, debates over how to interpret the conflict and its leaders continue.
by Alex Cacioppo via Public Books on March 9, 2015

Was John Hancock’s Signature Too Big? Or Was Everyone Else’s Too Small?

We hold this truth to be self-evident: John Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence was too big.
by Ben Blatt via Slate on August 5, 2014
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