How old were they when they signed the Declaration of Independence?

[green73]

A partial list of the Founding Fathers’ ages on July 4, 1776:

Marquis de Lafayette, 18

Aaron Burr, 20

Alexander Hamilton, 21

James Madison, 25

John Jay, 30

Thomas Jefferson, 33

Thomas Paine, 39

John Adams, 40

George Washington, 44

Samuel Adams, 53

Benjamin Franklin, 70

Historian David McCullough explained the phenomenon of picturing our Founding Fathers as older than they actually were:


We tend to see them as much older than they were. Because we’re seeing them in portraits by Gilbert Stuart and others when they were truly the Founding Fathers — when they were president or chief justice of the Supreme Court and their hair, if it hadn’t turned white, was powdered white. We see the awkward teeth. We see the elder statesmen. At the time of the Revolution, they were all young. It was a young man’s–young woman’s cause.



http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/08/what-age-were-they-when-deceleration-of.html

[Czolgosz]

Interesting, did not know.

[tod evans]

Cool!

Does this mean I can blame the youngsters for the mess the country's in for a few days?

[Scrapmo]

"Buncha highschool dropouts"

Makes sense though, when your young your an upstart, full of piss and vinegar. Most people lose that as they age.

[fr33]

Whacko birds obviously.

[green73]

"Buncha highschool dropouts"

Makes sense though, when your young your an upstart, full of piss and vinegar. Most people lose that as they age.

Also, this was in a time long before the elites began their campaign to curate a culture of perpetual adolescence.

[MRK]

Whacko birds obviously.

Bunch of college kids in their dorm rooms.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZFhPjm3kJk/UTjnRFbPaII/AAAAAAAABqM/lLMad5OF23M/s280/Pat+Finished.JPG

[BuddyRey]

This is actually kinda comforting for someone who thinks they haven't yet accomplished much relative to their age too, since Ben Franklin and Sam Adams helped birth a new country in their '70s and '50s, respectively. I pray that when I'm an old dude, I'll still be as radical as I am today.

[osan]

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/08/what-age-were-they-when-deceleration-of.html


This also explains at least in part why the Constitution is so weakly written. They may have been well educated, but there is no substitute for life experience where such matters are concerned and there is no way one is going to have that experience at 18 or even 25 - though in those days men and women became adults far younger than they do now. This extended period of infancy running into one's late 40s is truly terrible to my eyes. Just look at Obama, for pity's sake.

[surf]

This also explains at least in part why the Constitution is so weakly written. They may have been well educated, but there is no substitute for life experience....

please splain yourself

[bolil]

please splain yourself

Slavery, nuff said.

[BamaAla]

This also explains at least in part why the Constitution is so weakly written. They may have been well educated, but there is no substitute for life experience where such matters are concerned and there is no way one is going to have that experience at 18 or even 25 - though in those days men and women became adults far younger than they do now. This extended period of infancy running into one's late 40s is truly terrible to my eyes. Just look at Obama, for pity's sake.

They got 11 years of experience between the Declaration of Independence and the drafting of the Constitution. The youngest, Lafayette, would have been 29.

[osan]

please splain yourself

About what in specific? The absence of life experience or that the Constitution is weak?

Addressing the latter: our current political reality and the historical chain we are able to readily observe serve as prima facie evidence and PROOF that the Constitution is weakly written. - perhaps more a symptom of the corresponding weakness in men's hearts than minds.

As Bolil points out, slavery is pretty damning evidence of the personal and perhaps intellectual failings of a sufficient number of the framers to nail the lid shut on any argument to the contrary. It is evidence that they did not engage in a formal and concerted analysis and derivation of human rights. It may be reasonable to assert that there was a time when the mental faculties of men were insufficient to the derivation, but that justification for the horrors of empire sublimated into vapor thousands of years ago.

I do not believe one can argue against this: as long as men have held the intellectual sophistication to build cities and monuments of stone they have had in their hands the means to derive the principles of proper human relations. That they failed to do this or otherwise ignored what they may have discovered is an indication of nothing other than the personal corruption of those who occupied seats of power because in those days it would have been unlikely that Theye could have lead the pampered lives they did had they not had slaves at their beck and call. Regardless of what Truth might have shouted at them, they were likely hell-bent to continue upon the way of tyranny for the sake of their own convenience, comfort, and self-aggrandizement. Talk about "An Inconvenient Truth" - THAT is what Al Gore's film should have addressed.

The same may be said of those framers who held their slaves. Were they so lacking in fundamental intelligence that they could not tell that black Africans were also human beings? "Men"? Could they not recognize their own issue when the women slaves they visited in the wee hours bore children? Was that not evidence enough that negroes were not just little black animals whose appearances mimicked their own in superficiality? What say ye of those who kept their slaves until such time of their own death upon which said slaves were freed? Does this not indicate full knowledge of the rottenness of slavery? Does it not expose the drive to engage in its practice as masters because doing so gets one what one wants in life? Great men? In some ways yes - not so hot in others, it seems.

People are endlessly rotten in their behavior because they are endlessly rotten in their thoughts. The rot that results in the Empire Mind or from it is perhaps the single most virulent, contagious, and deadly disease ever to arise in a species on this world. It is invariably terminal. It is the very essence of evil because it is self-reinforcing in its seduction of the very characteristics of humans that lead to their corruption - corruption for no other sake than convenience and comfort and what the corrupt view as power. As I have written here before, the effect is as that portrayed in vampire movies like Salem's Lot where, once bitten, the victims of the monster cease wanting to escape its clutches. Give that one some thought because it applies to nearly every individual human being on the planet and perhaps worst of all, most of those are incapable of seeing it for themselves. The veil has blinded them utterly and rendered wanting their chains - demanding them. Could there be any greater evidence of plague than this?

We the humanity, as a statistical consideration, have beaten and stolen and murdered and enslaved and submitted our way through time for nothing more justifiable than personal comfort. It behooves every last one of us to consider the brutishly ugly reality of what my assertion means in its fullness - something I am not sure even I am able to do, given the nearly limitless reach of its truth. It is one of the greatest epiphanies I have ever experienced and it changed my life with respect to the way in which I view the race of men and my statistical prognosis for the future. Empire is a disease of mind; of perception and thought, and one of its causes or symptoms (not yet sure which it is - both perhaps in a self reinforcing circle?) has been the decision to place one's petty comforts above the fundamental rights of his fellows to live and be free. Want to talk about "original sin"? There you have it - in spades and by the boatload in an endless caravan of hideous spectacle.

[osan]

They got 11 years of experience between the Declaration of Independence and the drafting of the Constitution. The youngest, Lafayette, would have been 29.

Your point is well taken, which raises questions of character and possible sub rosa intent.

[A Son of Liberty]

We the humanity, as a statistical consideration, have beaten and stolen and murdered and enslaved and submitted our way through time for nothing more justifiable than personal comfort. It behooves every last one of us to consider the brutishly ugly reality of what my assertion means in its fullness - something I am not sure even I am able to do, given the nearly limitless reach of its truth. It is one of the greatest epiphanies I have ever experienced and it changed my life with respect to the way in which I view the race of men and my statistical prognosis for the future. Empire is a disease of mind; of perception and thought, and one of its causes or symptoms (not yet sure which it is - both perhaps in a self reinforcing circle?) has been the decision to place one's petty comforts above the fundamental rights of his fellows to live and be free. Want to talk about "original sin"? There you have it - in spades and by the boatload in an endless caravan of hideous spectacle.

Your entire post is noteworthy; I found this concluding paragraph to be most insightful, however.

Thank you.

[Lafayette]

Damn! i didnt know i was that young back then.

[Lafayette]

Damn! i didnt know i was that young back then.

Killin me some Red Coats! #YOLO!

http://www.ushistory.org/Valleyforge/served/images/lafayette.jpg

[BamaAla]

Killin me some Red Coats! #YOLO!

http://www.ushistory.org/Valleyforge/served/images/lafayette.jpg




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Otla5157c

[Occam's Banana]

Oops! Thread title should be "How old were they when the Declaration of Independence was signed?"
Not "How old were they when they signed the Declaration of Independence?"

Of those listed, only Jefferson, Franklin and the Adams "brothers" (John & Samuel - they were actually cousins) were signatories to the Declaration.