The phrase Founding Fathers was popularized by Warren G. Harding in 1916, long after the revolutionary generation had died, and John Adams himself rejected being called a founder. This episode strips away the marble statues to look at who the founders actually were and how historians define the group.

We compare Richard B. Morris’s seven-man list with the broader definition tied to the Charters of Freedom, spotlight Roger Sherman and the Connecticut Compromise, and examine the lawyers, planters, merchants, and doctors who designed checks and balances. Then we look at the dissenters who refused to sign, the roles of Abigail Adams and Crispus Attucks, the Three-Fifths Compromise, and how the founders were later turned into myth.

• How Warren G. Harding coined the phrase Founding Fathers
• Why Roger Sherman signed all four major founding documents
• How the founders’ professions shaped checks and balances
• Why George Mason’s refusal to sign led to the Bill of Rights
• How Daniel Webster and later politicians turned the founders into a flawless abstraction