# Who's your favourite Founding Father?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 16, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721 "2006-02-16T00:23:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/41 "2006-02-17T13:47:37Z")
**Hal** those action figures are awesome! I might have to collect them all!
(there are not enough female action figures there, though, I noticed. Looks like Martha Washington is a smurfette. the slut.
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/42 "2006-02-17T14:15:05Z")
Hamilton, creator of modern deficit spending. He brought down the commies!
Second, Dolly Madison make some scrumptious pastries…
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/43 "2006-02-17T14:15:28Z")
Franklin by a hair. Politician, scientists, writer, roue – a genius at everything he tried.
Jefferson second, for his political and religious philosophies, plus the declaration.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/44 "2006-02-17T15:41:44Z")
Another plug for Jemmy Madison. If he hadn’t kept those copious notes, would we be able to have those endlessly fascinating debates over what the Convention “really meant” by some obscure phrase that defies lexical analysis?
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/45 "2006-02-17T16:00:04Z")
> [@Cliffy](#):
>
> I dig Marshall as well, of course. You can’t not if you read Marbury critically and see how cleverly he ensared Jefferson. Plus, the story goes that the Court had been criticized for drinking too much rum during their caucuses, so it was agreed that they’d only drink rum when it rained. The next day, Marshall asked Justice Story to see if it was raining. Story looked out the window and dejectedly reported that the sky was clear. Marshall is said to have replied “Justice Story, that is the most damn fool opinion I have ever heard you deliver. Our jurisdiction extends the length and bredth of the nation! Surely, somewhere therein it is raining!” And the bottle was opened.
>
> –Cliffy
Great story. 😃 Another reason for lawyers everywhere to like Marshall: I recall reading somewhere that he started the practice of assigning one judge to write the majority opinion. Prior to that, each judge wrote an opinion in each case. Imagine having to figure out what the heck was going on if you had to read nine opinions for every case!
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/46 "2006-02-17T18:49:21Z")
> [@Kyla](#):
>
> My fave is James Madison, the creator of the complex system of checks and balances that gives our federal government its style, verve, ridiculous bureacracy, and panache.
Another Madison fan checking in, and i’m actually surprised at how few of us there are. Although i admit that much of my admiration for him stems from his intellectualism, and not simply from his politics.
Federalist #10 is one of the most imortant political documents in American history.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/47 "2006-02-17T21:06:55Z")
Another vote for Thomas Paine.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/48 "2006-02-17T21:07:35Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#):
>
> The founding Mothers that always get a special fuzziwarmfeelgood from me are **Elizabeth Cady Stanton** , **Susan Anthony** \*\* Jane Addams.\*\* amongst many, many others.
All of whom suffer by not being alive during the American Revolution. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-your-favourite-founding-father/344721/49 "2006-02-17T21:12:12Z")
Another big fan of **George Washington** here. As noted above, he was extraordinarily principled, ambitious, confident, insightful, and disciplined. Abigail Adams observed - correctly - that he was “modest, wise and good.” Led the Continental Army for eight years, losing a lot but winning brilliantly when the opportunities presented themselves (Trenton, Princeton, Yorktown). Would rather have retired to Mount Vernon, but risked his prestige to successfully chair the Constitutional Convention. Still denied retirement by his country, he virtually invented the Presidency, and guided the country through its first eight difficult and treacherous years. Gave up power willingly time and again, when some would have made him king.
After that: **Ben Franklin** (inventor, scientist, diplomat, writer, ladies’ man) and **Alexander Hamilton** (visionary economist and political theorist).
I’m not a big fan of **Thomas Jefferson** , actually. Read Joseph J. Ellis’s _Founding Brothers_ and you’ll see what a sneaky bastard he could be, as well as a hypocrite. Not much to point to during his White House years other than the Louisana Purchase (in direct contradiction to his oft-stated views on enumerated powers) and sending out Lewis and Clark. He wrote a good Declaration, though, I gotta give him that.
P.S. I actually have that Washington action figure at home! Got it as a birthday present a few years ago.
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