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Founding Fathers ~ Who ya got?


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29 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was the MVP of the founding fathers?

    • John Adams
      1
    • Sam Adams
      1
    • Benjamin Franklin
      3
    • Alexander Hamilton
      2
    • Patrick Henry
      0
    • Thomas Jefferson
      9
    • James Madison
      4
    • Thomas Paine
      3
    • George Washington
      6


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Tough call between John Adams, James Madison and Ben Franklin. Hard to compare them really, as they were such different animals, but all so crucial to making it work.

 

Washington was a natural leader more so than any of those, but he was also far from a brilliant strategist. He was a tactician, and his input into the way the country was established, other than his military record, was less than stellar IMO.

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 08:20 AM)
Tough call between John Adams, James Madison and Ben Franklin. Hard to compare them really, as they were such different animals, but all so crucial to making it work.

 

Washington was a natural leader more so than any of those, but he was also far from a brilliant strategist. He was a tactician, and his input into the way the country was established, other than his military record, was less than stellar IMO.

 

Like shaping the modern presidency?

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 01:55 PM)
I didn't say he wasn't important - just that I think others were more so. He had a framework to function within, that he had very little input into building.

The most important thing Washington did was decide that he didn't want to be come a king/dictator. The army probably would have followed him if he'd wanted to.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 12:57 PM)
The most important thing Washington did was decide that he didn't want to be come a king/dictator. The army probably would have followed him if he'd wanted to.

 

But that's hardly important. The fact that he set the framework for two terms being the max, to be referred to as Mr. President and not His Excellency, or to flat-out become the monarch of America is something that was set up by the legislators in Philadelphia. George Washington was merely selected because he was the leader of an army that owes its victory to French generals that set them up to win. And once he was selected, he was put into a framework that he could in no way alter by creating an entirely new monarchy.

Edited by Milkman delivers
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QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 28, 2011 -> 10:53 AM)
poor john jay.

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know jack s*** about John Jay.

 

Isn't he like the only one to have signed all the major documents at the beginning though (or some trivia of the sort).

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I say Jefferson, because it's like he invented a time machine, came forward to the present, and then went back and said the following things to warn us BEFORE it happened:

 

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

 

“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

 

...and last but most importantly...

 

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

 

He didn't foresee this...he knew.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 12:06 PM)
But that's hardly important. The fact that he set the framework for two terms being the max, to be referred to as Mr. President and not His Excellency, or to flat-out become the monarch of America is something that was set up by the legislators in Philadelphia. George Washington was merely selected because he was the leader of an army that owes its victory to French generals that set them up to win. And once he was selected, he was put into a framework that he could in no way alter by creating an entirely new monarchy.

All I can say is look at how all of them were viewed in their own times...

 

Washington demolishes the rest of them.

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QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 02:36 PM)
All I can say is look at how all of them were viewed in their own times...

 

Washington demolishes the rest of them.

 

Actually Franklin was on par with Washington in that respect. It was Franklin's suggestion of a two house system that saved the Constitutional Convention when they could not find a compromise that the small and large states could agree upon. Franklin was one of a few, like Washington, that everyone would listen to.

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