Thirteen episodes on the founders who appear in the historical record but not in the textbooks — the men who wrote the documents, refused to sign them, designed the institutions, and paid the price. Sherman, Morris, Mason, Dickinson, Henry, Carroll, Witherspoon, Wilson, Wythe, the Forgotten Four, Lee, Gerry, and Samuel Chase — the only Supreme Court Justice ever impeached.
The Continental Association (1774). Declaration of Independence (1776). Articles of Confederation (1781). Constitution (1787). Roger Sherman signed every one. No one else did.
He spoke 173 times at the Constitutional Convention. Then he sat on the Committee of Style and wrote the Preamble. The before-and-after drafts survive.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776). The Constitutional Convention (1787). The Objections to the Constitution (1787).
The Continental Association (1774). The Declaration on Taking Up Arms (1775). The Articles of Confederation (1776). John Dickinson wrote or co-wrote all of them.
Patrick Henry's name is synonymous with the Revolution's demand for liberty. His relationship to that word — what he meant by it, who it included, and what he did when the government that promised it ...
Maryland was founded as a Catholic refuge. Then the law spent seventy years dismantling that refuge. By 1776, Charles Carroll of Carrollton could not vote, could not hold office, could not practice la...
In May 1776 he stood in Princeton and preached that Providence was guiding the Revolution — six weeks before he was elected to Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence.
One of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He proposed the single executive — a president, not a committee of three.
He taught law to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and James Monroe. He signed the Declaration of Independence. He was the first law professor in America.
Caesar Rodney rode 80 miles through a storm to break Delaware's deadlock. John Morton cast Pennsylvania's deciding vote and was dead nine months later.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee stood in the Pennsylvania State House and introduced the resolution for independence. Not Jefferson. Not Adams. Lee.
He signed the Declaration of Independence. He refused to sign the Constitution. He moved for a Bill of Rights on September 12, 1787 — the Convention unanimously rejected it.
He signed the Declaration of Independence. Washington put him on the Supreme Court. Congress impeached him on eight articles. The Senate — controlled by his political enemies — acquitted him on every count.