Who's your favorite/least favorite founding father?

Who's your favorite/least favorite founding father?

Hard mode: not Washington, though nobody would blame you for liking him.

I withhold my opinion because I'm currently working on filling in this blank in my conception of history.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=KQbYgLae1u0
youtu.be/7NSFesJe1ok
youtu.be/6FPEwPpSyVE
youtu.be/mBmTdJ4XTfs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Kościuszko
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_Marquis_de_Lafayette
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Favorite: John Jay
Least Favorite: Arthur Lee

Lincoln

Favorite - Thomas Jefferson
Least Favorite- Anthony Hamilton

Consider posting your reasons why as well.

Franklin

fav: Jefferson
Least fav: Hamilton

Favorite: Franklin or Hamilton
Least favorite: Adams or Burr

>2016
>Being a Jeffersonian

It's funny how Burr poisoned everything he touched.
>bank he founds villainously* becomes JPMorgan
>turns the Tammany Society into a political tool that becomes Tammany Hall

*got the money for the bank by asking around for a water company, changing the charter to include a bank after he gets the funds and then never doing anything with water whatsoever. Then a malaria outbreak hits NY and fucks the population without running water but good

>It's funny how Burr poisoned everything he touched.

That's because Burr was a self-serving snake.

I mean, the worst is obviously Aaron Burr, and if you say anyone else you're wrong. But I guess "worst" and "least favorite" are different things.

On the subject of "worst" I'd also nominate John "they're all out to get me" Adams for being so inept and ill-tempered that he practically destroyed a government handed to him on a silver platter.

>hating jefferson
>liking Alex "Democracy is a poison" Hamilton

>not liking "Let's make sure this country actually sticks around" Hamilton
>not having a healthy respect for but acknowledging the ideological flaws of "fuck everyone else, Virginia 4 lyfe" Jefferson

>Hating
Never said that friendo, Jefferson wasn't all that bad, I just find him a tad overrated.

>Hating Alexander "the American Dream incarnate" Hamilton
>Liking Thomas "the American Jacobin" Jefferson

The thing you have to understand about Jefferson and by proxy the rest of the Virginian Fathers is that Virginia was basically England 2.0. The planters quickly set up an established aristocracy much like Britain's weird Georgian neofeudalism where the planters were the landed gentry, the slaves were the peasants and it was very hard to break into local government because it was dominated by the big land-owning families in the House of Burgesses, which was literally just a country club that also governed the colony in sitting room meetings.
Now, planters were a bit more active because tobacco ruins land, so they had to always be
>running their plantation which was essentially a company town with doctors and carpenters and everything else necessary living there and working there
>keeping an eye on fluctuating tobacco prices and legislation surrounding it
>keeping an eye on meteorology and everything that goes into raising optimal crops
>keeping careful watch on fresh land to buy, including surveying land yourself
Now, the system worked in a general way because you had to be smart to do all this, thus smart people tended to be in local government, but it wasn't great for the little guy,and it wasn't what you'd consider ideally American.
This is why Washington was always trying to get back to his damn farm, because he essentially had a personal town to run. The man died surveying land in the rain.

Favorite: John Jay
Least Favorite: Patrick Henry

This, being president was essentially community service getting in the way of his millionaire dollar investment

I greatly admire and respect Jefferson, but I also can't look past his duplicitous nature in dealing with the Federalists. Sure, it was politics, I understand, but the guy would always act like he was above it and delegate the dirty work to his cronies.

Dirty work such as calling out pretty much every single Federalist either an aristocrat-in-the-making or a British double agent, all the while he literally owned what could be called a small private fiefdom and admired the French aristocracy.

Not to mention how huge of an obstructionist he was in the Washington administration, particularly after the French Revolution.

Does Thomas Paine count? If so him. All the rest are too far below Paine's level for me to care about a least favourite

>Jefferson's political actions, his support of Philip Freneau's National Gazette,[156] and his attempt to undermine Hamilton, nearly led George Washington to dismiss Jefferson from his cabinet. Though Jefferson left the cabinet voluntarily, Washington never forgave him, and never spoke to him again.[157]
Shit

It's worth noting that The National Gazette was one of the most incendiary papers of the day and served as a tool for Republicans to shit on the Washington administration for the pettiest of things. Freneau was also briefly locked up for libel when Adams was elected.

Yeah, I'm looking into it now.

That'd be like Joe Biden founding Fox News today.

Thomas Paine was fucking nice

Jefferson employed Freneau as a personal translator in the State Department even though the guy only spoke French, a language which the esteemed Secretary was fluent in.

Washington threw one of his rare tantrums when he found out and threatened to resign on the spot. And he probably would have too, if Hamilton and Jefferson hadn't promised to stop flinging shit at each other.

Where can I read about this stuff?

I've learned the broad strokes of colonial history as posted here from this great book, but I'd like something that delves specifically into the founding fathers and perhaps the decades surrounding the Revolution.

Franklin, but it's sort of meme history since I'm honestly not up to snuff on the founding fathers.

But Ben Franklin just seemed a great mix of playboy philosopher / scientist.

Biographies would be your best bet. The influence the Founding Fathers had in the development of the fledgling America can't be overstated - they practically had a blank slate and set huge precedents by writing like crazy, insulting each other, and debating for hours on end about the seemingly mundane things.

A few to start off with:
Washington: A Life - Ron Chernow
Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow
John Adams - David McCullough
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life - Walter Isaacson
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power - Jon Meacham
James Madison: A Life Reconsidered - Lynne Cheney

Common Sense and The Federalist Papers are also must reads if you're interested in the ideas that shaped America.

I've been hearing Ron Chernow's name a lot since delving into this.

That usually means they're either a main authority on the topic or pop history trash.

>tfw alexander hamilton was your favorite historical figure since you were in grade school
>tfw most people you met had no idea who he was
>tfw the only people who knew who he was were libertarianfags who praised aaron burr for killing him
>tfw you loved alexander hamilton before he was popular
now he's a meme for college liberals i mean i like that more people know about him, but i just wish it didn't have to be like this

i love you a-ham

musical was pretty sick tho

John Adams. Such an asshole Bostonian that we were able to drag twelve other colonies into open treason. Best & Worst.

OP here, I'm gonna be honest, the musical is what kickstarted my current research and this thread. I'm currently trapped in that loop of listening to an album ad infinitum until one gets sick of it.

It really cast Burr in too good a light though.

The premier historical documents support this

youtube.com/watch?v=KQbYgLae1u0

Massholes are always obnoxious and disliked.

Thomas Jefferson is my favorite. I can't pick a least favorite because I don't know much about the other Founding Fathers and I don't want to pick Alexander Hamilton.

I actually really liked him before the show, kinda sucks that I'll probably be lumped with all the other college libtards if I say I like him tho

It was indeed

youtu.be/7NSFesJe1ok

the funny thing is A-Ham would probably be a republican but a #nevertrump one

Yeah, where are people getting libertarianism from?
If anything Jefferson was more libtard friendly.

Also the best part of the musical imo

Liberals, not libertarians.
Modern liberals love the show partly because of its pro-diversity and pro-immigrant message.

and because they made everyone black for some reason

To be fair, rap is really well suited to the verbose dialogue required for a faithful musical representation of a bunch of rebellious lawyers, and nobody wants to see a bunch of white guys try to rap their way through a musical.

I don't care about the tumblr points awarded for the black cast though.

>implying the king's songs weren't the best part
i mostly agree with you though

I wonder how many people I've misinterpreted due to thinking they were talking about libertarians.

The king's songs were awesome, though I wish there was more allusion to George III being batshit insane beyond the line "I'll go mad".

I maintain that Jefferson had the best songs. The double whammy of What'd I Miss and Cabinet Battle 1 really sealed the deal on the whole thing for me.
youtu.be/6FPEwPpSyVE
youtu.be/mBmTdJ4XTfs

>though I wish there was more allusion to George III being batshit insane beyond the line "I'll go mad".

I thought that "crazy murderous ex-lover" theme was pretty much that.

Favorite: Hamilton
Least Favorite: Jefferson

Lincoln is not a founding father, fag.

Why would you even reply to that?

John Jay is based as FUCK

Yeah bro, I feel like most people don't know how much John Jay and John Marshall changed the course of this country. They honestly may have been the most influential figures of the early United States.

Fucking idiot

There are so many little things that could have gone a different way that would have changed America's government forever.

Like when the Republicans gained control of congress they attempted to impeach Samuel Chase, a federalist supreme court justice, for being in their eyes an obnoxiously partisan. Thankfully however his defense was successful so the strategy of removing unwanted judges for their political stances through impeachment was never attempted again.

Marbury vs Madison is another incident that has vast ramifications on the ultimate success of the American form of government.

>literally just a country club that also governed the colony in sitting room meetings.

The best form of government to ever grace this Earth.

>projecting.
Donald would have at least some support from Alexander, due to the fact that his trade policies are the only ones that actually resemble anything he stood for.

>You can't like Jefferson it's the CURRENT YEAR CMON

Fave: Jefferson
Least Fave: Hamilton

>admired the French aristocracy.
huh? Wasn't he a vehement supporter of the French Revolution?

Benjamin "No Germanics Allowed" Franklin

Does everyone forget that Hamilton and the federalists lost? The Jeffersonian republicans took over the course of the nation from 1800 onwards and last I checked, the USA is still around.

Oops, ignore that.

What I meant to say was that he railed on the Federalist "aristocrats" while living like one himself both in France, and to a lesser extent, back home in Monticello. He thought of himself as some kind of philosopher king figure, and looked down on the elitist lifestyle of the Federalists even though that's exactly the kind of life he led in France and strove for in Virginia.

The Federalists fell out of favor because they actually were elitist. Just look at John Adams, and hell, even Hamilton. Their bickering didn't just hand over the Presidency to Jefferson, but also tore the party apart.

Why? Because Adams looked down on the man who arguably saved the Union on multiple occasions because he was illegitimate. And that man was too proud to stand idly by and committed murder-suicide.

Does Tadeusz Kościuszko count? If so, he is one of my favorites. He was based.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Kościuszko

>And that man was too proud to stand idly by and committed murder-suicide.
We're talking about Hamilton, right? I view that more as guilt over the Reynolds affair and his son's death, though this is unfortunately supported just by the musical and some Wikipedia reading.

Yeah, Hamilton, but I feel like you're referring to the duel with Burr. I was talking about the anti-Adams pamphlet he wrote where he basically painted him out as an unstable and ill-tempered snob. That essentially handed the the Presidency to Jefferson and both houses of Congress to the Republicans.

He did all that because he was bitter at Adams for disbanding his standing army and firing two of his secretaries who served as Hamilton's eyes and ears inside the administration.

This was before his son's death, but both the duel and the pamphlet show how rash he could be at times.

Daily reminder that it took a Prussian military general for the Americans to win the Revolutionary War.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben

Ah, I didn't realize you meant political suicide.

And a Frenchman.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_Marquis_de_Lafayette

And a Pole. "Americans" and "America" were inventions of the Revolutionary War. I'm not sure if you were trying to diss Americans, but people like Steuben were as American as they were Prussian.

Theoretically, but immigrants were still seen as "other" by those who'd been there for generations. Just look at the Alien and Sedition Acts.

probably John Hancock because he invented finger fucking

>The Federalists fell out of favor because they actually were elitist

and because of the whole New England secessionist episode during the War of 1812. Kinda hard to be the party of "strong national government" when you push for secession after you don't get your way.

I thought it was the Virginians who sought Independence first.

Roger Sherman
>Great compromise
>Signed all four great papers

Connecticut represent