THE FOUNDING FATHERS

A: Accurately defined, the Founding Fathers (capital Fs) of the United States of America are the 55 representatives from the independent, but confederated, states who were actually at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were the persons responsible for specifically creating the Constitution for the United States of America--the founding document.

If you refer to significant leaders of the specific American colonial movement toward independence--like signers of the Declaration of Independence who were not at the 1787 Convention and did not participate in the drafting of the Constitution, you could use founding fathers (small fs) in terms of that particular movement; such as, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry--leaders in the struggle for independence, but not founders of the government of the United States of America or framers of its one and only founding document. The Founding Fathers are the 55 men who heard and debated the issues, drafted the sentences, or voted for adoption of the Constitution. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines Founding Father as follows: "A member of the American Constitutional Convention of 1787."