Diary: Assessing Our Founding Fathers, or Who's Our Daddies?

The Los Angeles Times recently published an article about Thomas Jefferson and the "Bible" he compiled by omitting all the "miracles" that the King James version presents in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. The story dubbed Jefferson as among the "Founding Fathers" of this nation, which raised the question, "Just who are our Founding Fathers?"

A professor quoted by the Times said about Jefferson: "Yet, he is the least likely person I'd want to pray with. He was more skeptical about religion than the other Founding Fathers."

Jefferson was labeled by the Times and throughout history as a Founder with no hesitation even though he was not among the group generally thought of as our "Founding Fathers." Jefferson was in Paris as an envoy from the colonies and had nothing to do with writing the Constitution. There has been reference to Alexander Hamilton as "not a Founding Father" although Hamilton was the only delegate from New York to endorse the finished Constitution at the Constitutional Convention (the second Continental Congress) and the main author of The Federalist Papers, which were written to sell the constitutional proposal to the American people. John Jay, also a writer of the Federalist Papers, was not among those endorsing the Constitution, nor did he sign the Declaration of Independence, so is he a "Founding Father' by participating in selling the Constitution?

The term "Founding Fathers" is generally reserved for those men who gathered in the Second Continental Congress to compose our Constitution. But that designation shouldn't always be reserved to those few.

The First Continental Congress met in two parts, in the late summer of 1774 and again in 1775. It had 56 members, all of whom signed the declaration of independence even though separation from Great Britain was not an original goal. The Congress, with representatives from 12 of the 13 colonies ~ Georgia was a slacker ~ first met to present a list of grievances to the British monarchy. When those grievances were not addressed, the radical members ~ i,e, liberals and progressives ~ insisted on and obtained the movement for independence at the second meeting. So, are those 56 Americans Founding Fathers because they facilitated independence?

The Second Continental Congress that wrote the Constitution had 55 members but only 36 signed the Constitution and of those, only six were part of the First Continental Congress. George Mason refused to endorse the Constitution because it didn't contain a Bill of Rights (He was big on bills or rights, see below) while many conservative Southern representatives refused to accept the one-nation concept because they were fearful that would eliminate slavery That was one thing conservatives have been right about even though it took about a century to do that and another century to even address racial segregation. There was considerable contention among the delegates with discussion on almost every word and arguments on all principles. Although the majority of delegates did accept the final proposal, not all of them were of one mind. All of the men at the convention participated in the creation of the Constitution, but 19 of them refused to endorse the final product. Are those 19 considered Founding Fathers if they didn't endorse the final product they helped create?

There is also the question of where John Marshall fits into the category as a Founder. Marshall is often dismissed because "he only became chief justice later on" and had nothing to do with writing the Constitution. But he was chosen by Virginians at the Convention to lead the movement through Virginia ratification process. Those Virginians at the Convention were federal office holders and would have nothing to do with the state business, while Marshall was a state official hand-picked for the duty. He is, therefore, vitally important to the creation of the Constitution because when it came to him it was only a proposal. He helped make it law as did men in the other 12 colonies. Do they and the delegates at all 13 ratification conventions qualify as Founding Fathers although some states didn't ratify the Constitution until the nation had been legally created with ratification of nine states?

The people who elected the delegates to the state ratification conventions might also be considered "founders" although they had nothing to do with writing and ratifying.

The First Congress had 26 senators and 55 representatives (some people think Mason wrote the Bill of Rights but he wasn't a member of the First Congress, so had no input. He did write the Bill of Rights in the Virginia Constitution, but anyone who can read can see that the rambling, verbose Virginia Bill of Rights was definitely not written by the same person who wrote the terse, direct and clear federal Bill of Rights). This First Congress approved the Bill of Rights and sent it to the states for ratification. Logically, this makes members of the First Congress somewhat Founding Fathers even though dozens of them had nothing to do with writing of the Constitution. And the members of conventions ratifying the Bill of Rights at the state level could also be considered founders.

Then we have the 27th amendment that was proposed in 1789 by the Father of the Constitution James Madison when the nation had 13 states but not made legal until 1992 when the nation had 50, so who is responsible for it and are they also considered Founders?

This gives us thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Americans who had a hand in forming the nation and all could rightfully claim to being a "Founding Father" even though an individual's involvement was minimal. And not all of them had a single mindset about what the nations was all about.

This inability to zero in on the exact "Founding Fathers" leaves us with a quandary when right-wing politicians and Supreme Court judges like Antonin Scalia base their actions and decisions on "original intent" or what the "Founders wanted." We need to know which Founding Father's original intent Scalia refers to in one of his less-than-logical screeds.

Therefore, it is wise to ignore the Founders's original intent if we don't know which Founder we are referring to and try to determine how the words and/or principles of the document may apply to the question at hand.

PS: We can also start using the Constitution correctly as most "Founders" intended and get government out of our procreation, spiritual lives or religion, patriotism or lack of such, morality, love lives and marriage, thought, assembly (like "free speech zones"), travel, language, censorship and dying or telling us what we can insert, ingest or inhale into our bodies. The basic conservative political agenda and none of which is within the Constitution's power to regulate.