srsly! and what about all those other big names? Jefferson? Lincoln? were they as great as history teaches us?

Well, according to justice Stevens, we know that they didn't want us to have handguns. Ya know, because it's not like these people were worried about tyrranical governments and people being unable to protect themselves from them. Ya know.

LW

we know a good sum about what they thought then.

Yep. And that's exactly why people have handguns today. I'm sure you'd just love an armed revolution against the government.

Depends how you define "great." If you expect them to be gods among men, you will be disapointed. If you're content to find them to be flawed humans who happened to also have some magnificent qualities and fervently did what they felt was best for this country, then you will probably be very satisfied.

On this note, I was going to post in another thread asking if anybody has read biographies of Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Washington, etc and see what you thought of them. I'm looking into reading bios on the founding fathers and would love to be pointed toward some good books.

i've read joseph ellis' america creation, and founding brothers is on my docket. i've read much into jefferson, and yes, you are right: flawed men with some great ideas.

Founding Brothers is good. Immensely readable. If you get into it, there's no reason you can't read it in 6 or 7 sittings. My one problem with it is that Ellis sometimes has the tendency to assign motives and reasons for statements and actions which he cannot possibly know. It makes for a very good read, but at the same time I take some of his conclusions with a grain of salt, because I don't particularly trust authors who stray away from facts and into the grey areas of thought for the purpose of telling a more compelling story.

You recommended American Creation to me before; I didn't order it from Amazon yet, I'm waiting for the paperback edition to come out, but it sounded pretty good from reviews I've read.

Sure, they were flawed, but you really have to consider their frame of reference, and give them some allowance for 18th century society. They got wrong some things that seem obvious to us, given things like better communication, decade after decade of freedom of thought, etc.; but we're getting plenty of things wrong on our own, being that none of us have really seen firsthand the tyranny they have.

Ben Franklin stated pretty well what they brought to the table: a Republic, if we can keep it.

When I took political sciences class, I read the Hegel, Marx, Burke...but the Federalist Papers were among the best things I've ever read. The questions Madison, Jay and Hamilton bring about the different branches of power, the role of which one are extremely up to date.

His Excellency: George Washington is the only individual biography I've read on any of them so far and it's very good.

in 10th grade in our US history class we had a substitute one day that handed out pamphlets that claimed that abraham lincoln was gay and there was a huge cover up and (along with the end of the civil war) was one of the reasons booth shot him. our teacher was pissed when he came back and heard what she tried to teach us and she didn't sub at our school again after that

where were the pamphlets from?

i honestly don't remember...they weren't like anything that was professionally done though. they were pretty low-end quality. i think everyone in the class was pretty much in disbelief when she started talking about it and i doubt she convinced anyone of lincoln being gay. in fact it became a long running joke with everyone in our class (and the other classes that had her that day)

google "abraham lincoln gay" and there's a list of shit that comes up...read the new york times entry and also the wiipedia entry and you'll get the basic gist of what the pamphlets were

oh, i completely agree.

I've heard that before. It's not that off the wall.

the idea isn't off the wall, but for a random substitute teacher to be handing out pamplets about it? especially when most of my school's population had parents that were lawyers and doctors (although my mom wasnt)? it didnt sit well with people to say the least