I've heard it repeated here that the founders were a bunch of "old" white guys. Well here is a refute to the "old" charge .
Here are some of the prominent founders and influential people of the Revolution.
Marquis de Lafayette was eighteen years old in 1776, when he was offered the rank of Major General in the American army.
Alexander Hamilton, at the age of twenty-one, received his commission as Captain of a New York artillery company. He went on to successfully lead his men through critical battles with the British in and around New York City. Hamilton’s military performance and writing skills so impressed George Washington that the General appointed young Hamilton as his personal aide, and promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He served with distinction through the rest of the war.
As a teenager, Hamilton had already written essays arguing for American independence from Britain. His abilities in writing, law, and political theory were at least as great as his military prowess, and he went on after the war to co-author the famous Federalist Papers with James Madison and John Jay.
At the age of twenty-five, James Madison played a pivotal role by representing Virginia’s Orange County in the drafting of his state’s Constitution. Starting that same year, he continued to be a leader in the Virginia state legislature, where he was notable as an advocate for religious freedom.
While in college, he and some friends formed a political club for discussing oppressive British policy. After the war, he went on to serve as the youngest member of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, and served as President of the United States during the War of 1812.
John Jay was thirty years old when he served as a delegate to New York’s constitutional convention, where he had a formative influence on the creation of that major state’s new governing documents. From there he continued to be influential within the New York legal system. Jay had initially sought reconciliation with Britain, but in 1776 became an ardent American patriot and advocate for the ideal of liberty, including the liberty of African-American slaves.
He went on from the war to serve as ambassador to France and Spain, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and as co-author of the Federalist Papers.
At the age of thirty-three, Jefferson, already then serving as a member of Virginia’s state legislature, was selected by his peers to draft the Declaration of Independence.
[Taken from Generation Opportunity web site .]
Happy 4th of July! - Generation Opportunity
This would put all of them in the Millennial generation today. As the site says : If those young Americans had just sat back and let older generations make decisions for them, the United States wouldn’t be the independent nation it is today.