Our Crazy Founding Fathers!

[PBrunsel]

Founding fathers' had their quarks too. Just take these examples:

John Hancock: The richest man in New England was a man who loved good Rum Punch. He loved it so much that he had a big bowl by his bedside at all times of the day.

Benjamin Franklin: A genious inventor and states man, even Dr. franklin had his faults. He had an illigitimate child who went on to become royal Governor of New Jersey, but he sided with England durring the Revolution and fled to Great Britain. Franklin also wrote several pamphlets, one was known as Fart Proudly. In it Franklin wondered if there was a way to make the gas people pass smell better.

Alexander Hamilton: Love him or hate him, he had the biggest problem of any politician, even today. He had an affair with Maria Reynolds, a Virginia Socialite. When Maria's husband James  Reynolds descovered one his wives letters to Hamilton, he demanded money from Hamilton to keep the affair secret. The affair broke any way, and the Democratic-Republicans used the first blackmailing and sex scandal in American history to discredit Hamilton.

Samuel Adams: The "Father of the American Revolution" as he is sometimes called could not hold onto a dollar. He was so bad at keeping money he couldn't even succeed at tax colecting! When the First Continental Congress opened in 1774, Adams had no good suit to wear, so his fellow delegates put funds together to buy him a new suit.

Aaron Burr: Where to start! The man who would kill Alexander Hamilton, while sitting as Vice President of the United States, chose to continue his job as Vice President until he was dumped from the Democratic-Republican Ticket in 1804. He conspired with seven other men to create a war with Mexico so he could crown himself "Emperor of the New World." One of the men got cold feet and told President Jefferson, and Burr was cahrged for treason. he was aquited though, and he soon fled to England.

[PBrunsel]

Bumped for July 4th!

[Schmitz in 1972]

Wow, I actually remember when you first posted this topic, I've been at this board for over a year now.

In any event, they weren't perfect but they were decent men who did a fairly good job at creating a nation, and for that I gratefully salute John Hancock, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, William Floyd, Phillip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopksinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, and Matthew Thornton.