The serial signer Founding Father: New Haven’s Roger Sherman (1721–1793)

Recommendable!

"If, in this semiquincentennial year, you want to rank America’s founding fathers in terms of their influence, you have to put New Haven’s Roger Sherman (1721–1793) in the top ten.

Sherman is the only person who signed all four of the nation’s founding documents. He served in some form of national legislature nearly continuously from 1774 until his death, and he proposed the compromise that allowed delegates to agree on the United States Constitution in 1787. ...

But both men would express their admiration for Sherman. “And yet he deserves infinite praise—no man has a better heart or a clearer head,” concluded [William] Pierce [of Georgia].

Decades later, [John] Adams recalled Sherman in similar terms in a letter: “Destitute of all literary and scientific education, but such as he acquired by his own exertions, he was one of the most sensible men in the world, the clearest head and steadiest heart.” ..."

Serial signer | Old Yale | Yale Alumni Magazine

Roger Sherman’s plain mode of dress, depicted here in a portrait by Ralph Earl

The Fall of Thomas Paine: The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason

Recommendable!

The Story of America: The Formation of the Army told by Pete Hegseth

Very recommendable! "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof"

Richard Stockton

Recommendable! AI generated history lessons from the White House!

William Ellery

Recommendable! AI generated history lessons from the White House! 

Elbridge Gerry

AI generated history lessons from the White House!

John Dickinson: An American Liberal and Founding Father

Recommendable! One of the lesser known Founding Fathers and Mothers!

Rarely in history do you find such a great meeting of the minds like during the founding of the United States!

It is Memorial Day weekend!

John Dickinson: An American Liberal Deep in History | Acton Institute

Honi soit qui mal y pense!

Lafayette: France’s forgotten hero, America’s beloved patriot

Recommendable!

The first Black battalion of the American Revolution | Encyclopaedia Britannica

Poorly done by Encyclopedia Britannica! What exactly happened to those slaves who fought for the American Revolution? Was it really only one Rhode Island unit? Video failed to mention that in his will George Washington asked all slaves to be released upon the death of his wife and that many of his slaves were acquired by his marriage. Plus, George Washington was not a brutal slave owner, au contraire!

Our Forgotten Founding Mother – Mercy Otis Warren

Recommendable!

Our Forgotten Founding Mother – Brenda M. Hafera "Mercy Otis Warren stands at the head of a long tradition of freedom-minded women pursuing civic virtue."

George Washington's final years

Recommendable! However, the video omitted to mention that George Washington freed all his slaves in his will conditioned upon the death of his wife!

The Role of the Founding Fathers in Combating Slavery in America | Thomas Sowell

Very recommendable!

Black Americans’ Indispensable Contribution to the Founding

To call black Americans Afro-Americans is demeaning! History is more complicated and complex than slogans or labels!

"... Black Writers of the Founding Era includes figures familiar to those conversant with the American colonial and revolutionary periods, such as Phillis Wheatley, Richard Allen, James Armistead Lafayette, Prince Hall, and Benjamin Banneker, but many more black Americans, free and enslaved, grace these pages and deserve to become part of the histories now written about America. ...

the Declaration of Independence and lead to a war for independence that would enlist, by Basker’s count, 5,000 to 8,000 black Americans. ...

To be sure, as many as 20,000 blacks took the occasion of the Revolutionary War to join the British or otherwise leave America for other parts of the British Empire, while others petitioned for their freedom so that they could return to Africa. ..."

Black Americans’ Indispensable Contribution to the Founding – Lucas E. Morel

Jean-Baptiste-Antione de Verger's depiction of American soldiers at the Siege of Yorktown shows a soldier of African descent from the Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army 

Rare document by James Madison that shows contributions of polish Jewish financier to American Revolution up for sale

Another conspiracy theory against Jews? His name was not Soros but Salomon. Just kidding!

So there were at two two Polish men prominently involved in support of the American Revolution, Tadeusz Kościuszko and Haym Salomon.

"After 10 years on display at Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, a document penned by James Madison linking Jewish financier Haym Salomon to the American Revolution is now for sale.

The document, a sheet from the ledger of Madison, who later became the fourth U.S. president, showed the Virginia delegation’s expenses and receipts during the 1780 Continental Congress. It lists contributions from Salomon, a Sephardic Jewish immigrant from Poland who came to America in 1775 and is considered one of the leading funders of the Revolutionary War effort. ..."

Rare document that shows contributions of Jewish financier to American Revolution up for sale - Jewish Telegraphic Agency "Haym Salomon was also one of the founders and main donors to Mikveh Israel, a Philadelphia synagogue, still active today, nicknamed the ‘Synagogue of the American Revolution.’"

Black Writers of the Founding Era, an anthology featuring more than 120 writers

Can you believe it severely exploited, exhausted, beaten up and diseased illiterate slaves from Africa kept in hand shackles all the time were writers? Must be systemic racism! Caution: Irony, satire!

"Featuring more than 120 writers, this groundbreaking anthology reveals the astonishing richness and diversity of Black experience in the turbulent decades of the American Revolution

For too long, African Americans have been left out of the story of the nation’s founding, their voices absent from the memory and celebration of the creation of the American republic. Black Writers of the Founding Era—by far the richest and most expansive anthology of its kind ever assembled—restores these voices. The writings gathered here reveal the complexity and dynamism of African American life and culture in the period and show how the principles of the American Revolution were seized upon and enlarged by Black Americans from the very beginning."

Black Writers of the Founding Era - Library of America

Remembering Benjamin Franklin’s forgotten essay on America’s population boom

Recommendable! Food for thought!

Remembering Ben Franklin’s forgotten essay on America’s population boom | Blaze Media The political context for his work of genius is interestingly relevant: ‘Observations’ was perhaps America’s first immigration restrictionist pamphlet.

Is there evidence for the existence of God?

As long as we do not have a good explanation for where the universe came from or what came before the Big Bang, the existence of God and the creation by God can not plausibly nor credibly be denied!

That is also why religious tolerance and freedom of religion are so important for human civilization!

Atheism is perhaps the strangest of all religions!

In God we trust! (Origin: Possibly Benjamin Franklin and others)

The US has always had ‘big government’ – even in the Colonial era. Really!

Two confused professors are trying to fool the reader!

These two professors are actually saying very little about the Founding Fathers and Mothers contrary to the title of their article!

One of the professors have a very low lifetime citations count (6205) according to Google Scholar. The other professor is emeritus.

One of their arguments rests on central versus local government. They argue some state governments were actually big government. Well, these two professors are probably not aware of e.g. voting with your feet (which still happens today).

Another of their arguments rests on infrastructure investment by government. Some infrastructure investments (e.g. canals) are often better executed at the government level. This is a commonly accepted position, most likely also accepted by many small government advocates.

"... The idea of small government, however, is a myth at odds with U.S. history. In our new book, “How Government Built America,” we explore the extent to which the U.S. government has intervened in markets since the Colonial era. It turns out the country has always had big government. ..."

The US has always had ‘big government’ – even in the Colonial era

The two professors also wrote this book. No government did not build America! Nonsense!

John Witherspoon: Educating for Liberty

Recommendable! The story of one of the forgotten Founding Fathers and Mothers!

"... Yet in his lifetime, and for at least a century thereafter, Witherspoon was widely esteemed as (in one writer’s words) “one of the great men of the age and the world.” More recently, a small but growing number of historians has concluded that he was probably “the most influential teacher in the entire history of American higher education” and the most important college president America has ever known. It seems not too much to say that, were it not for Witherspoon, American politics in the 1770s and 1780s might have taken a different trajectory. ..."

John Witherspoon: Educating for Liberty | Acton Institute

This is what you get, when you Google Search for this man (very sad, but politically correct I suspect):

Portrait of John Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister and President of Princeton University; the only clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson and slavery

Is it just me or why is the question how the Founding Fathers and Mothers treated slaves rarely asked nor answered? Owning slaves is one thing, but how they were treated is another.

As the long Wikipedia article below exemplifies, the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and slavery is complicated and complex.

Thomas Jefferson and slavery - Wikipedia