The phrase Founding Fathers was coined by Warren Harding in 1916
Americans have honoured the revolutionary generation as fathers since the early 1800s, but the familiar two-word label is surprisingly recent. Senator Warren G. Harding introduced it in a 1916 convention speech and repeated it at his 1921 inauguration. John Adams, for one, begged people not to call him a father or founder at all.
Adams made his objection in an 1811 letter to the younger Josiah Quincy III, saying he had no reason to believe his generation was better than Quincy's and that such titles belonged to the American people as a whole. Presidents kept the idea alive regardless: Jefferson spoke of forefathers in 1805, John Quincy Adams praised the founders of the Union in 1825, and Lincoln invoked the fathers at Cooper Union in 1860. When Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the younger Adams saluted them as fathers and founders of the republic.
Who counts is debated. In 1973 the historian Richard B. Morris picked seven men using what he called triple tests of leadership, longevity and statesmanship, a list widely accepted for the rest of the century. George Washington tops any version as commander of the Continental Army, president of the Constitutional Convention and first president. The 1783 Treaty of Paris that secured independence was the work of Jay, Franklin and Adams, while Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote the Federalist Papers urging ratification of the Constitution.
Broader definitions take in everyone who signed the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation of 1781 or the Constitution. The 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention are called framers, though 16 did not sign; only Edmund Randolph, George Mason and Elbridge Gerry were present at adoption and refused. Others earn the title by deed, such as Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense of January 1776 rallied support for independence, or Joseph Warren, remembered as the Founding Martyr after dying at Bunker Hill.
Views of the group have shifted since the 19th century, away from treating them as demigods and toward reckoning with their failure to resolve slavery and war debt. Scholars stress judging both their achievements and flaws in the context of their time. Many were wealthy merchants, lawyers and landowners with roots mostly in the British Isles.
Source: Founding Fathers of the United States
