[Pharmboy]

I am truly interested to hear what you folks think. Fire when ready, Gridley...

[Pharmboy]

Pissant: I added you since you like top ten lists.

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[mware]

In no particular order.

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson,

Ben Franklin

Abe Lincoln

Ronald Reagan

Teddy Roosevelt

George Washington

Thomas Edison

John Ford

I leave the last one blank, you can add your own to the list.

[Moose4]

No James Madison?

}:-)4

[snowsislander]

Were I making such a list, I think that Robert Morris, Francis Marion, and the Marquis de Lafayette would likely find slots as among the most important men in our revolution.

[aculeus]

Great stuff!

Adding number 10 was a nice touch.

Happy Fourth!

[Congressman Billybob]

I would quarrel the inclusion of Patrick Henry. He turned a few memorable phrases. But he had no national role in the forming of the United States of America.

Instead of Henry, the pure word smith on your list should have been Thomas Paine. He wrote "Common Sense" and "The American Crisis." Those two books created the US out of 13 separate states which thought of themselves as separate "nations."

John Adams is widely reported to have said, "Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain." Paine was the first person ever to write the phrase, "United States of America." I think he should be on your list.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Death by Talk Radio: the Amnesty Bill"

[RightWhale]

There were three foundings.

1776. Was anybody else on FR besides me in the play by that name?

1787. Many of the names are the same for the first and the second but it was a different world and the Founders different by ten years of experience and near failure of the USA. Some new names were involved. They produced the second Constitution,

1865. which when the corrections were applied after the Civil War became our present, effectively third Constitution.

Founding Fathers Ver 1.0, and Founding Fathers Ver 2.0 and Founding Fathers Ver 2.1. Somewhat related, vastly different political philosophies. Other foundings could be added, in particular in the FDR Admin.

[SergeiRachmaninov]

It has been said that he would have been the only Founder with a 1600 on the SAT.

Are we speaking here of the King James version or the newest, normalized editions where everybody -- at least everybody ~you~ know -- is above average?

[SergeiRachmaninov]

It was his misgivings (along with George Mason) about the Constitution that gave us our precious Bill of Rights protecting state and individual rights.

Oh, you mean like that Tenth Amendment...that final bulwark against an omnivorous federal government? [/sarcasm and heartsickness]

How sad it is -- on this Independence Day -- to think of these great guarantees of the people's liberty, now more often used to stifle the people than to protect them.

I think we'd better redouble our grip on #2. It is the enabling amendment for a people needing to revisit the sentiments that once before stirred their hearts and set them marching.

[Molly Pitcher]

Hi Pharmboy! Happy 4th to you. Agree with your list and all your comments including the intro ones about Jefferson. Washington, above all.

Now, how about 11-20? Maybe Nathaniel Greene would be somewhere in that section...