[tanknetter]

Madison, Jefferson, Mason, Washington, etc, etc - all BRILLIANT men who had one thing in common - private enterprise. They, to a man, were all entrepreneurs.

I disagree on Jefferson. He wasn't an entrepreneur, but an academic.

[OldDeckHand]

"He wasn't an entrepreneur, but an academic"

You do understand that he owned a plantation, right?

To the degree that he was an academic, almost all of his endeavors in that area came after the conclusion of his political career - and naturally after the founding of the country. He was, before the revolution, a working attorney and a farmer, and to some degree a political activist, penning several well-received treatises on contemporary public policy.