The people who did it

George Washington commanded the army, chaired the Constitutional Convention, and then did the thing he is most remembered for: he left. He gave up command in 1783 and the presidency in 1797, setting a two-term habit that held for a century and a half before it was written into law.

Benjamin Franklin was a printer, a scientist, a postmaster and the diplomat who brought France into the war on the American side — without which it would very likely have been lost. He was the oldest man in the room at the Convention by some distance.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration and later doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase. He also enslaved more than six hundred people over his lifetime while writing that all men are created equal. Both facts belong in the same paragraph.

John Adams argued hardest for independence and then, as a lawyer, defended British soldiers in court because he thought everyone was entitled to a defense. James Madison took the notes at the Convention and drafted the Bill of Rights. Alexander Hamilton built the financial system. Abigail Adams, who held no office, wrote to her husband in 1776 telling him to "remember the ladies" — he did not, and it took another 144 years.

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