Free Not Your Father's Founders by Arthur G. Sharp

several colonies, including Georgia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. He grew to dislike the way the British people viewed the colonists. As Franklin wrote, “Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign over America.”
    He had an opportunity to oppose the British government in 1775, when he was elected as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress. The next year he helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and then signed it.
    Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
    â€œT HEY WHO CAN GIVE UP ESSENTIAL LIBERTY TO OBTAIN A LITTLE TEMPORARY SAFETY DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY NOR SAFETY .”
    â€”B ENJAMIN F RANKLIN
    No one expected Franklin to serve actively in the military during the Revolutionary War. After all, he was sixty-six years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Instead, he was dispatched overseas to seek French assistance with America’s war effort. He arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, as one of the members of the commissioners of Congress to the French court. He did not return until 1785.
    Franklin negotiated successfully with the French for aid to the United States. Then, between 1779 and 1781 he was appointed to a commission to negotiate a peace treaty with Britain. He signed the Treaty of Alliance with the French government in 1778 and the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War in 1783.
    REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS
    Two of Franklin’s cleverest inventions were created in the 1783−86 period: bifocals and a device for pulling books off shelves.
One More Major Assignment
    After Franklin returned to the United States, he kept busy. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Executive Council, which was the executive branch of the state’s government, from 1785 to 1788.
    In 1787, he served as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention to debate the merits of the U.S. Constitution, but he did not participate often in the discussions. Nevertheless, he signed the document after it was ratified.
    Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
    â€œI F YOU WOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN , A S SOON AS YOU ARE DEAD AND ROTTEN , E ITHER WRITE THINGS WORTHY READING , O R DO THINGS WORTH THE WRITING .”
    â€”B ENJAMIN F RANKLIN
    He concentrated on the abolition of slavery for the next couple of years. But time caught up with him in 1790. He passed away at age eighty-four. About 20,000 people attended his funeral—seemingly one for every accomplishment in his extremely productive lifetime.

ELBRIDGE GERRY
    Marblehead, Massachusetts
July 17, 1744−November 23, 1814
Father of Gerrymandering
    Elbridge Gerry seemingly came out of nowhere, signed the Declaration of Independence, and returned to obscurity, except for the word for which he is still remembered: “Gerrymandering.” Before he bequeathed the country with that eponym, he served in several legislative bodies and as an envoy to France. He lost a little cachet when he refused to vote for the U.S. Constitution, but he rebounded to become the governor of Massachusetts and the vice president of the United States. Those were significant accomplishments for a man with obscure beginnings.

Who Was Elbridge Gerry?
    If Elbridge Gerry had not signed the Declaration of Independence, his epitaph might have been short: “He was born in Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard, served his state well, and died in office.” But the people of Massachusetts saw him as an effective legislator who deserved to take his place on the national stage. He did, without making much of a splash—except in a negative way.
    Very little is known about Gerry’s early life. He graduated from Harvard in 1762, became a wealthy merchant, and stumbled into politics.
    In 1773, Gerry took a seat with the Massachusetts General Court to represent Marblehead. The following year Samuel Adams successfully introduced a motion asking that the province appoint a Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry. Gerry was