Every American is taught a pristine narrative of the life and legacy of George Washington and can easily recite the highlights of the “Father of Our Country”. The remarkable Virginian led an under-resourced rag-tag army to ultimate victory in the American Revolution before becoming the nation’s first president, setting it on its path toward superpower status. He may not have actually chopped down a cherry tree or tossed a silver dollar across the Potomac, but his contemporaries considered his character above reproach. When Washington voluntary resigned as commander of the armies, he stunned the world. Everyone in the colonies and the world realized that Washington, at the head of the last army standing in the colonies, could have made himself king of the new United States on the spot, and it would have been a move supported by his rank and file soldiers. Instead, Washington became the first Westerner to voluntarily demobilize his army, ensuring civilian control of the new nation. King George III called Washington "the greatest character of the age" for making that decision.
The story of the United States of America is one of a nation founded upon the loftiest ideals of representative government, attempting to fulfill its goals while encountering competing domestic and global forces. From the beginning, Americans debated how their national government should govern, balancing powers between the federal government and the states, which led to the establishment of the first political parties. At the same time, the nation has struggled to reconcile its guarantee of universal rights and individual liberties with several stark realities, including the presence of millions of slaves at the time of the Declaration of Independence.
Nobody spent more time in the thick of these debates than Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous and revered Americans. Jefferson was instrumental in all of the aforementioned debates, authoring the Declaration of Independence, laying out the ideological groundwork of the notion of states’ rights, leading one of the first political parties, and overseeing the expansion of the United States during his presidency.
Before the United States of America even existed, the first American celebrity was Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). In his career, Franklin was an author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. After having his hand in all kinds of community service in Philadelphia, and inventing important devices like lightning rods, Franklin used his unique status as an international celebrity to become the colonies’ best diplomat, first as an ambassador to Britan and then as an ambassador to France during the American Revolution. Franklin was particularly revered in Enlightened France, where he skillfully negotiated French entry into the Revolutionary War in a manner that practically bankrupted them, a critical step that helped the colonists win their independence. After negotiating the Treaty of Paris, Franklin played a role at the Constitutional Convention in his adopted home town of Philadelphia during the twilight of his life.
