id author title date pages extension mime words sentences flesch summary cache txt en-wikipedia-org-6572 Founding Fathers of the United States - Wikipedia .html text/html 15269 2025 61 Morris in 1973 identified the following seven figures as key Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington based on the critical and substantive roles they played in the formation of the country's new government.[2][3] Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were members of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. The term Founding Fathers is sometimes more broadly used to refer to the Signers of the embossed version of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, although four significant founders – George Washington, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison – were not signers.[6] Signers is not to be confused with the term Framers; the Framers are defined by the National Archives as those 55 individuals who were appointed to be delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and took part in drafting the proposed Constitution of the United States. ./cache/en-wikipedia-org-6572.html ./txt/en-wikipedia-org-6572.txt