After losing the presidency to John Adams in 1796, Thomas Jefferson won a rematch in 1800. It was called the “Revolution of 1800″ because there was such a stark difference between the political viewpoints of Adams and Jefferson. Adams passed the hated Alien and Sedition Acts, which Jefferson believed targeted his party more than enemy [...]

President George Washington named Thomas Jefferson as our nation’s first secretary of state, but his tenure was anything but tranquil.
It wasn’t that Jefferson did not have the experience for the job — he was serving as the American minister to Paris — it was his conflicts with other founding fathers on what direction the country [...]

Thomas Jefferson truly was a man of his native Virginia – it shaped him, he loved it, and its influence led him to further shape Virginia and a new nation.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights had an immense impact on Thomas Jefferson’s thinking and writing. It contained a significant number of ideas that found their way [...]

Before Thomas Jefferson wrote the brilliant Declaration of Independence, he laid the foundation with his “A Summary View of the Rights of British America.” He wrote it for the First Continental Congress in 1774, and it spelled out the colonists’ grievances. It was these writings that became the framework and intellectual impetus of the Revolution [...]

Thomas Jefferson would be one of our greatest Americans if he was nothing more than the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
But he also was one of the key leaders throughout the revolution that established the United States of America, he was one of our greatest presidents, he founded the University of Virginia, he [...]

It was the issue of taxation that caused Benjamin Franklin to change his view, from believing American should cooperate as a colony of Britain, to believing in independence for America.
Franklin thought taxation should be up to local assemblies. It was Britain’s passage of the Stamp Act that enraged so many colonials, and Franklin eventually realized [...]

Benjamin Franklin started his political career as a local public servant and ended it as one of the key figures in the birth of the United States of America.
Franklin became involved in local politics in Philadelphia in 1736, becoming a councilman in 1748. He later became a Justice of the Peace, and in 1751 he [...]

​Every American school child knows (or should know) that Benjamin Franklin was among the greatest of the Founding Fathers. His writings, diplomacy and statesmanship helped shape the United States of America.
​But Benjamin Franklin was famous for so much more than his part in the birth of America.
​Franklin was a respected scientist and inventor. He didn’t [...]

Benjamin Franklin would have been one of the most outstanding men in any country, in any era — but his life and work during the period of our nation’s founding made him one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.
In addition to his contribution in bringing the United States of America into the world, Franklin [...]

Perhaps nothing showed Samuel Adams’ dedication as a true revolutionary than his involvement in establishing the Committees of Correspondence.
The earliest Committees of Correspondence were temporary groups which addressed a specific problem, and were disbanded when the problem was resolved. The first formal committee was established in Boston in 1764 by Samuel Adams to oppose the [...]

Samuel Adams was one of the major leaders of the Sons of Liberty, and one of the primary movers, both in inspiration and in action, which led to the revolution for America’s independence.
The Boston Caucus Club, led by Samuel Adams and others, and the Loyal Nine were early dissident groups that became the Sons of [...]

Sam Adams’ greatest strength as a leader in the American Revolution was his skills as a writer.
As a writer of numerous articles and pamphlets, Adams fanned the flame of freedom in the hearts of American patriots.
A lot of his early writing was done anonymously. It had to be, because the British would have arrested him [...]

Samuel Adams today is primarily known as a premium brand of beer. But, although he may be less known today than many of the other Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams can take his place among the primary voices in America’s battle for independence.
Adams (a second cousin to John Adams, our second president), was a signer of [...]