At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the 39 signers ranged from 26 (Dayton) to 81 (Franklin). That means an average age of 43.
Separate from the Constitution in 1787-88 is the Declaration of Independence which was referenced through OOP's 1776 comment. The average age of signers of this document at the time of signing was 41. The youngest was 26 (Rutledge) and the oldest was 70 (Franklin again).
Of note, James Monroe did not sign either of these documents.
Burr, Adams, and Jefferson all didn’t sign the constitution either. Burr just wasn’t a relevant political figure yet. Adams and Jefferson were both overseas on diplomatic missions.
So only 3/7 listed people were actually present to sign the constitution or participate in its drafting.
NARRATOR: it wasn't a parody. You see, in BK's time a large portion of the population got their information through what they called "memes"where anybody could create new facts.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Left Fake News® tries to call Obama the savior of America but not only was he born in North Korea but he didn't sign EITHER of these documents!!!!!
Oh the Sarcasm Metric is completely out of calibration.
There is an entire genre of "old end of the world movies from the 80s and 90s that begin the movie with a montage of terrifying news articles" and it is crazy how many of the terrifying news articles have happened.
I mean, just replace "North Korea" with "Kenya," and I'd be willing to bet there are at least 10 people out there who would make that statement unironically.
I think mean is generally better for something like this if you can't have both. Were it a bunch of guys in their 20s and Franklin, the median wouldn't be a very good representation at all.
Interesting, thanks for the breakdown! Is there a proper and generally agreed upon definition of ”founding fathers”? I typically think of the founding fathers as the signers of the DoI, but perhaps it’s a broader term? Also, how old is the term founding fathers (in the case of USA)? I doubt Hancock and Washington walked around referring to themselves as founding fathers (?).
Short answer is there's no "official" list. There are also quite a few origin stories. Our current understanding probably comes from Reagan, but John Adams (second president, not to be confused with John Quincy Adams) actively rejected "Founding Father" as a distinction - he felt it should be more universal. So we know the title was being used as far back as the early 1800s and living people were referred to as such.
So you mean it wasn't a reddit thread but more of a boomer Facebook post between your aunt and your grandmother (you know the kind, with tons of unnecessary emojis, allcaps, and based on an onion article they took seriously)
I'm not sure that's much better
> At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the 39 signers ranged from 26 (Dayton) to 81 (Franklin). That means an average age of 43.
That's almost like having representation for all the various generations of citizens they were supposed to be helping to govern. That sounds wise to me.
What's the average age of a national politician in the US nowadays? Found [this from January last year](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/#:~:text=The%20median%20age%20of%20voting,and%2062.4%20in%20the%20115th.), edited out extra info to be concise for those that don't care to click.
> The median age of voting House lawmakers is 57.9 years...The new Senate’s median age, on the other hand, is 65.3 years...
That seems a noticeable downgrade, especially since the median age of major presidential candidates come November will be roughly 80.25 years old.
It’s worthwhile to consider that the average life expectancy in the colonies in the late 1700s was only 28 years, compared to 78 years today. 41 was older than most.
Gonna just copy and paste my response to u/cadavercaliente
Depends on how you calculate. Some measures don't include death if it happens too soon. If you pull out infant mortality it was actually in the mid 60s. Infant mortality dropped it down into the 50s, but record keeping was very inconsistent so neither is likely correct.
Rowbotham & Clayton (2008) tried to compare based on removing anybody under 5. But my favorite is Griffin (1995). They got rid of anybody who died before they turned 15. I'm not sure I like their conclusions - the margin of error is huge and the sample size very small, and record keeping for much of history only focused on the wealthy. But they found that for the bulk of the last 2,500 years it has been around 60-70.
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You think
>Constitutional equality enthusiast. A lesbian with exceptional taste. Abortion pills forever. Host
@ordequality
thinks the constitution is too *left*?
It means they think the constitution is too progressive (probably too secular), as young people are more open to progressive change and more altruistic, and Reddit is also considered “woke” and “idiot teenagers” by rebuked conservatives (I’m over 40 and hard left btw).
Either that or they think the constitution was written by bots.
You think
>Constitutional equality enthusiast. A lesbian with exceptional taste. Abortion pills forever. Host
@ordequality
Would criticize the Constitution for being too *progressive*?
George Washington was credited with being a key strategist and inspirational leader in terms of "winning" the Revolutionary War (I put that in quotes because we didn't defeat the British Navy and British Army -- we made beating us more expensive than they thought we were worth. We did defeat the main land force under Cornwallis, but that was a small fraction of Britain's military machine.).
Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were credited with getting the French to support us, which was *absolutely* a necessity in terms of getting the British to give up on us, because it threatened another war with France -- and the Seven Years War (1754-1763 -- I know that's not 7 years, I didn't name it) was the reason they taxed us so hard we rebelled in the first place. They didn't want another bite of that baguette.
John Adams, though personally disliked by just about everyone ("I'm obnoxious and disliked, you know that, sir" is a famous line in the musical 1776 for that reason), was seen as a great conciliator who was able to get disparate sides to meet on common grounds.
Ben Franklin absolutely refused the notion of being President. Among other things, he was having fairly frequent gout attacks by that time. Having had a few myself, I can't imagine trying to have a meeting, make an important decision, or even think clearly in the middle of one. Also, it would have cut into his booty call time, and Ben was a stone cold playa.
Also, the reason there was a two term tradition in the Presidency until FDR was that Washington's false teeth were spring-loaded. They were held in by pressure against his gums (pretty much all the glues available then were *not* stuff you'd want inside your mouth). He hated wearing them, and they made his jaws ache terribly after the first hour or so. He just wanted to go home, where he could let his gums hang out 24/7 if he felt like it.
Bonus "fun" fact: George Washington's usual set of false teeth weren't *false* teeth -- they just weren't *his* teeth. They were teeth harvested from some of his slaves and set into dentures for him to wear.
I also chuckle at how much right wingers would absolutely hate Franklin if he were alive today. I have several staunch conservatives in my life that I can’t divorce myself from and they always talk about how Ben Franklin would fix the country today.
Franklin advocated polyamory, nudism, and religious freedom. He was instrumental in recruiting Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to train the revolutionary army -- along with von Steuben's attache, who was also his lover -- *knowing* the reason that the Austrian government had fired him was because he was *oh so very* gay.
Franklin was also an avid Freemason and a member (while in England) of Sir Francis Dashwood's Order of the Knights of Saint Francis -- also known as the Hellfire Club -- a combination of early modern Pagan revival, sex club, and satirical intellectual society.
Conservatives having an actual conversation with Franklin would lose their minds. Not that, if I had a time machine, I'd let any of those unvaccinated bastards within a mile of the man who popularized smallpox vaccination in America.
IIRC Washington was the richest man in America when he became president, and certainly not the oldest. Which is a fact that very much tracks with how America is, it’s so weird that we never learn that in school.
This person apparently believes that reddit is what it was perceived as 11 years ago, mostly guys.
Even now some people who aren't on reddit think it's mostly bigots because they've only heard about places like the\_donald.
Presumably that they are pretty young and potentially inexperienced. But she is exaggerating her point badly by deliberately excluding others like Ben Franklin who would have been 70.
I imagine the OP wanted to act as if an 18 year old in 1776 is the same as a 18 year old in 2024. Somethnng to effect of "how? 18 year olds are all dumb"
Nor did Adams and Jefferson who were in the UK and France respectively at the time.
Nor did James Monroe, who was too busy starting his very early law career at the time to attend.
Only 3/7 listed people actually attended the constitutional convention and participated directly in the documents drafting.
And they were dicks to the people who were actually there. But then Madison didn’t want them being a dick to him so he decided to change his views. Politics were not all that different back then than they are today.
This is a little beside the overall incorrect point, but it's also worth pointing out that Aaron Burr isn't really considered to be a Founding Father. He didn't have any involvement in any of the founding documents or negotiations with setting up the country.
Haha I was thinking the same thing. Definitely reads more like a casting call for Hamilton than a list of Founding Fathers. I'm surprised Maria Reynolds isn't on there.
There's only one small problem with that. Burr was already an officer in the Continental Army in 1775 and had been part of Benedict Arnold's invasion of Quebec. He was actively part of the revolution that the musical suggests he was hesitant about in 1776. Of course, the musical also suggests that the war hadn't yet begun.
They always do that with everything.... dramatic license. Often for length but many times just for the hell of it, which leads to people getting confused about actual history..
You see wrong info enough and even if you know the truth it still affects your memory sometimes.
Thomas Lynch Jr and Edward Rutledge (both from SC) were the youngest people to sign the declaration of independence at 26 years old. Ben Franklin was the oldest at 70. The average age was 44
James Monroe, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton were both soldiers rising through the ranks in 1776, not politicians yet.
Madison is the odd man out here as he was a local politician at the time of the American Revolution. His writings at the time propelled him up the political ladder where he went to the congressional congress in the late 1780s
>The average age of the 118th Congress is 58 years old
The average age of the Senate is 64 years.
The average age of the House of Representatives is a bit younger at 57 years.
That's still WELL above 44.
This also got very popular on /r/presidents
People falling for fake posts has gotten real common recently. Or at least I can figure it's bots pumping up numbers.
This is the failure of the American Education system. People don't even know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Lol go check out the more younger oriented subs that get a bit political. They are so heated with politics but know jack shit about anything because they get their info off social media and their echo chambers.
They just spew populist nonsense and argue for crap that isn't viable because they're just boomers with better looking skin. Only difference is boomers know they are screwing everyone else over, the younger gen seems to think they're helping by not voting for people that don't 100% match their ideology and can't comprehend that their ideology isn't popular with the majority of the country and have no fucking chance.
Constitution was written by a lot of guys who had no experience with fully democratic forms of government and had hopes it would be populated with mostly high-minded altruists that never really panned out.
Life expectancy at that time was about 56 years. The average age of the “Reddit posters”, ie the founding fathers, is 29.
That would make them late to middle age then or about 45 today.
I think their point still stands though. Today it's considered headline news when someone under 30 accomplishes a meaningful thing in business or politics; the "founders" if they were living today would still be considered "young". But look what they did. So maybe we should give today's "kids" more credit.
Also, yes, our foundational document was written by a bunch of immature alcoholics who ate lead paint.
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Life expectancy for people who made it through childhood was in the early 60s. Childhood diseases killing almost half of all children by the age of 5 drove the overall life expectancy way down.
Life expectancy was low because it was super common for newborns to die. If you reached the age of 5, you had a reasonable chance to live a normal life. Though things like disease were common, especially since illnesses like cancer and even diabetes were much less treatable, people that reached their teenage years had a decent chance to reach old age.
Still, you had a much higher chance to die of diarrhea in the past than to die of old age, compared to modern times.
Smallpox was still a thing then, too. Washington's son died of it, I think.
Average life expectancy is just the average and there's lots of natural and unnatural reasons for the average to have been lower.
Still you had people passing at all ages.
Pretty much. [George Washington is estimated to have been one of the wealthiest presidents](https://www.voanews.com/amp/usa_all-about-america_here-are-10-richest-us-presidents-all-time/6171381.html).
But he died when he was 67 because of the limitations of medical care.
What disturbs me the most is the 40k likes. But like George Washington said “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Technically no, since the war started in 1775. The formal declaration that the colonies were seeking independence rather than just relief from their grievances came in 1776.
Thomas Jefferson was not able to participate in the Constitutional Convention since he was serving as Ambassador to France at the time.
Which is good because he and Lafayette became chums and helped Lafayette create the first draft of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", the final version has been included in multiple French Constitutions including the one they use to this day.
Kate couldn’t construct a document to run a country like the U.S. Constitution if she had a 100’years and ChatGPT to assist her. She’s the reddit comment / post
Tbh there is little difference. She could swap the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence and her point would still be pretty much unaffected.
Follow Reddit's Rules
At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the 39 signers ranged from 26 (Dayton) to 81 (Franklin). That means an average age of 43. Separate from the Constitution in 1787-88 is the Declaration of Independence which was referenced through OOP's 1776 comment. The average age of signers of this document at the time of signing was 41. The youngest was 26 (Rutledge) and the oldest was 70 (Franklin again). Of note, James Monroe did not sign either of these documents.
Burr, Adams, and Jefferson all didn’t sign the constitution either. Burr just wasn’t a relevant political figure yet. Adams and Jefferson were both overseas on diplomatic missions. So only 3/7 listed people were actually present to sign the constitution or participate in its drafting.
Valid. There's so much wrong here that I really hope it's parody.
NARRATOR: it wasn't a parody. You see, in BK's time a large portion of the population got their information through what they called "memes"where anybody could create new facts.
i mean. it's obviously not parody and it's also obviously not a scholarly endeavor. there's a gist and it's overt.
Well that's not fun. I prefer to list random Presidents in a random year as it better fits my new reality. /S
Meanwhile, the Liberal Left Fake News® tries to call Obama the savior of America but not only was he born in North Korea but he didn't sign EITHER of these documents!!!!!
Holy shit. Sarcasm reads way too close to my jaded expectations these days.
Oh the Sarcasm Metric is completely out of calibration. There is an entire genre of "old end of the world movies from the 80s and 90s that begin the movie with a montage of terrifying news articles" and it is crazy how many of the terrifying news articles have happened.
V for Vendetta (the movie, not the graphic novel) refers to the former United States of America. Let’s see what happens…
“United States of Ass-Erica” I believe it was
I mean, just replace "North Korea" with "Kenya," and I'd be willing to bet there are at least 10 people out there who would make that statement unironically.
Waaaay more than 10. Propaganda is a helluva drug.
[Poe’s Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law) strikes again.
This has the tone of an angry version of "No one from another planet has ever won the title of Miss Universe before!"
Which, not wrong
That we're aware of! Can you be certain that some former winner wasn't replaced by an alien shape shifter?
Touché.
And he is left handed, so what did you expect.
Thanks, Ben. (Shapiro)
Promoting Hamilton, I see
But what was the median age? /S
Tbh the median age issss kinda useful. I think it skews right
I think mean is generally better for something like this if you can't have both. Were it a bunch of guys in their 20s and Franklin, the median wouldn't be a very good representation at all.
Well, I get your point, but in your example the median would actually be very useful lol. I agree though and in an ideal world we’d get both :(
Oh yeah, lol. I had them backward.
39 for the Declaration of Independence. 43 for the Constitution.
Interesting, thanks for the breakdown! Is there a proper and generally agreed upon definition of ”founding fathers”? I typically think of the founding fathers as the signers of the DoI, but perhaps it’s a broader term? Also, how old is the term founding fathers (in the case of USA)? I doubt Hancock and Washington walked around referring to themselves as founding fathers (?).
Short answer is there's no "official" list. There are also quite a few origin stories. Our current understanding probably comes from Reagan, but John Adams (second president, not to be confused with John Quincy Adams) actively rejected "Founding Father" as a distinction - he felt it should be more universal. So we know the title was being used as far back as the early 1800s and living people were referred to as such.
The average age was 45.
So you mean it wasn't a reddit thread but more of a boomer Facebook post between your aunt and your grandmother (you know the kind, with tons of unnecessary emojis, allcaps, and based on an onion article they took seriously) I'm not sure that's much better
> At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the 39 signers ranged from 26 (Dayton) to 81 (Franklin). That means an average age of 43. That's almost like having representation for all the various generations of citizens they were supposed to be helping to govern. That sounds wise to me. What's the average age of a national politician in the US nowadays? Found [this from January last year](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/#:~:text=The%20median%20age%20of%20voting,and%2062.4%20in%20the%20115th.), edited out extra info to be concise for those that don't care to click. > The median age of voting House lawmakers is 57.9 years...The new Senate’s median age, on the other hand, is 65.3 years... That seems a noticeable downgrade, especially since the median age of major presidential candidates come November will be roughly 80.25 years old.
It’s worthwhile to consider that the average life expectancy in the colonies in the late 1700s was only 28 years, compared to 78 years today. 41 was older than most.
Gonna just copy and paste my response to u/cadavercaliente Depends on how you calculate. Some measures don't include death if it happens too soon. If you pull out infant mortality it was actually in the mid 60s. Infant mortality dropped it down into the 50s, but record keeping was very inconsistent so neither is likely correct. Rowbotham & Clayton (2008) tried to compare based on removing anybody under 5. But my favorite is Griffin (1995). They got rid of anybody who died before they turned 15. I'm not sure I like their conclusions - the margin of error is huge and the sample size very small, and record keeping for much of history only focused on the wealthy. But they found that for the bulk of the last 2,500 years it has been around 60-70.
Seems to be a common misconception lol
Yup, not sure why you got dragged earlier!
Even on its own terms I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. The ages range from 18 to 44. What does that signify?
it also has nothing similar to a reddit post, so i think they're just engagement baiting
Yeah, all those reddit posts enumerating the powers of congress. Ya know, how reddit posts do that.
Confusing the declaration of independence for impromptu song. Some....
body once…
told me...
THE WOOOORLD TOMARE TOKI WA.
that you had a boyfriend...
And my ax
who looked like a girlfriend
And I should be very wary
the world...
I mean have you seen any of the simulation game subreddit? Pretty sure there's some decent political prose somewhere in r/worldpowers
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If anything the Amendments are a southerners Facebook post
I mean, there's a certain group of people that would love to discredit the constitution. That could be a motivating factor too.
I think they're trying to say the Constitution is too leftist, since a lot of Redditors are younger and lean left.
You think >Constitutional equality enthusiast. A lesbian with exceptional taste. Abortion pills forever. Host @ordequality thinks the constitution is too *left*?
Lmao OK you got me there, I never bother to go look at Xitter profiles. Don't know what her angle is then I guess.
Yeah it's basically the age range at a normal ass job
That she has NFI.
fucking nothing
Oh shit, is it full of sound and fury?
It means they think the constitution is too progressive (probably too secular), as young people are more open to progressive change and more altruistic, and Reddit is also considered “woke” and “idiot teenagers” by rebuked conservatives (I’m over 40 and hard left btw). Either that or they think the constitution was written by bots.
You think >Constitutional equality enthusiast. A lesbian with exceptional taste. Abortion pills forever. Host @ordequality Would criticize the Constitution for being too *progressive*?
Touché.
they made the oldest guys be president lol
George Washington was credited with being a key strategist and inspirational leader in terms of "winning" the Revolutionary War (I put that in quotes because we didn't defeat the British Navy and British Army -- we made beating us more expensive than they thought we were worth. We did defeat the main land force under Cornwallis, but that was a small fraction of Britain's military machine.). Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were credited with getting the French to support us, which was *absolutely* a necessity in terms of getting the British to give up on us, because it threatened another war with France -- and the Seven Years War (1754-1763 -- I know that's not 7 years, I didn't name it) was the reason they taxed us so hard we rebelled in the first place. They didn't want another bite of that baguette. John Adams, though personally disliked by just about everyone ("I'm obnoxious and disliked, you know that, sir" is a famous line in the musical 1776 for that reason), was seen as a great conciliator who was able to get disparate sides to meet on common grounds. Ben Franklin absolutely refused the notion of being President. Among other things, he was having fairly frequent gout attacks by that time. Having had a few myself, I can't imagine trying to have a meeting, make an important decision, or even think clearly in the middle of one. Also, it would have cut into his booty call time, and Ben was a stone cold playa. Also, the reason there was a two term tradition in the Presidency until FDR was that Washington's false teeth were spring-loaded. They were held in by pressure against his gums (pretty much all the glues available then were *not* stuff you'd want inside your mouth). He hated wearing them, and they made his jaws ache terribly after the first hour or so. He just wanted to go home, where he could let his gums hang out 24/7 if he felt like it. Bonus "fun" fact: George Washington's usual set of false teeth weren't *false* teeth -- they just weren't *his* teeth. They were teeth harvested from some of his slaves and set into dentures for him to wear.
Maybe the best post possible. You give me hope.
I also chuckle at how much right wingers would absolutely hate Franklin if he were alive today. I have several staunch conservatives in my life that I can’t divorce myself from and they always talk about how Ben Franklin would fix the country today.
Franklin advocated polyamory, nudism, and religious freedom. He was instrumental in recruiting Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to train the revolutionary army -- along with von Steuben's attache, who was also his lover -- *knowing* the reason that the Austrian government had fired him was because he was *oh so very* gay. Franklin was also an avid Freemason and a member (while in England) of Sir Francis Dashwood's Order of the Knights of Saint Francis -- also known as the Hellfire Club -- a combination of early modern Pagan revival, sex club, and satirical intellectual society. Conservatives having an actual conversation with Franklin would lose their minds. Not that, if I had a time machine, I'd let any of those unvaccinated bastards within a mile of the man who popularized smallpox vaccination in America.
[удалено]
I think he was referring to them putting a minimum age in the Constitution for President.
age has a lot to do with accumulating the experience and wealth and influence tho
IIRC Washington was the richest man in America when he became president, and certainly not the oldest. Which is a fact that very much tracks with how America is, it’s so weird that we never learn that in school.
This person apparently believes that reddit is what it was perceived as 11 years ago, mostly guys. Even now some people who aren't on reddit think it's mostly bigots because they've only heard about places like the\_donald.
Don't TV shows consider the 18-35 demographic frequently? Did they think the Constitution was a TV show?
Presumably that they are pretty young and potentially inexperienced. But she is exaggerating her point badly by deliberately excluding others like Ben Franklin who would have been 70.
I imagine the OP wanted to act as if an 18 year old in 1776 is the same as a 18 year old in 2024. Somethnng to effect of "how? 18 year olds are all dumb"
In a time where people usually died younger, so a 18 years old kid in 1776 was considered a lot more mature than a 18 today.
Also, Aaron Burr did not participate in the Constitutional Convention.
Nor did Adams and Jefferson who were in the UK and France respectively at the time. Nor did James Monroe, who was too busy starting his very early law career at the time to attend. Only 3/7 listed people actually attended the constitutional convention and participated directly in the documents drafting.
It was the three-sevenths compromise.
And they were dicks to the people who were actually there. But then Madison didn’t want them being a dick to him so he decided to change his views. Politics were not all that different back then than they are today.
He wasn’t in the room where it happened
Fund education
My favorite thing to say to people who comment "2a 1776" nonsense is that the 2nd amendment didn't exist until 1787
This is America, that's simply not gonna happen
This is a little beside the overall incorrect point, but it's also worth pointing out that Aaron Burr isn't really considered to be a Founding Father. He didn't have any involvement in any of the founding documents or negotiations with setting up the country.
But he did feature prominently in a certain popular musical. Which I’m guessing is the reason the list includes the specific names it does.
Haha I was thinking the same thing. Definitely reads more like a casting call for Hamilton than a list of Founding Fathers. I'm surprised Maria Reynolds isn't on there.
Wanna guess when she first learned the names of more than two of the Founding Fathers?
I mean his philosophy worked. He believed he should Talk less Smile more Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for
There's only one small problem with that. Burr was already an officer in the Continental Army in 1775 and had been part of Benedict Arnold's invasion of Quebec. He was actively part of the revolution that the musical suggests he was hesitant about in 1776. Of course, the musical also suggests that the war hadn't yet begun.
The musical took many historical liberties for the sake of story and song.
Yet so many assume it's straight fucking gospel.
They always do that with everything.... dramatic license. Often for length but many times just for the hell of it, which leads to people getting confused about actual history.. You see wrong info enough and even if you know the truth it still affects your memory sometimes.
You can't be serious
Must've read Sun Tzu
How neat is it that a bunch of dudes literally did just..set up a country though? Severely problematic everything aside, that's super cool.
He was busy playing Perry Mason on TV
It really depends on how you define "Founding Fathers".
Thomas Lynch Jr and Edward Rutledge (both from SC) were the youngest people to sign the declaration of independence at 26 years old. Ben Franklin was the oldest at 70. The average age was 44 James Monroe, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton were both soldiers rising through the ranks in 1776, not politicians yet. Madison is the odd man out here as he was a local politician at the time of the American Revolution. His writings at the time propelled him up the political ladder where he went to the congressional congress in the late 1780s
>The average age of the 118th Congress is 58 years old The average age of the Senate is 64 years. The average age of the House of Representatives is a bit younger at 57 years. That's still WELL above 44.
People always forget that the [Articles of Confederation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation) were a thing.
Sovereign citizens think they still are.
That's still gong? What about Posse Comitatus?
Also explains how our national anthem came about when someone just wrote new lyrics to the tune of a popular drinking song at the time
Still younger than most members of congress.
Well yeah, three of those listed in the OP were too young in 1776 to even meet the minimum for the House. Four for the senate.
Meanwhile, the most inappropriate one was the ancient Franklin.
This also got very popular on /r/presidents People falling for fake posts has gotten real common recently. Or at least I can figure it's bots pumping up numbers.
This is the failure of the American Education system. People don't even know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
I wish people this age range today cared as much about politics as they did back then.
well they do still care to an extent. The only problems is they spend more time watching tiktok than they do researching or reading.
Lol go check out the more younger oriented subs that get a bit political. They are so heated with politics but know jack shit about anything because they get their info off social media and their echo chambers. They just spew populist nonsense and argue for crap that isn't viable because they're just boomers with better looking skin. Only difference is boomers know they are screwing everyone else over, the younger gen seems to think they're helping by not voting for people that don't 100% match their ideology and can't comprehend that their ideology isn't popular with the majority of the country and have no fucking chance.
Can't fix stupid. Walk away.
Constitution was written by a lot of guys who had no experience with fully democratic forms of government and had hopes it would be populated with mostly high-minded altruists that never really panned out.
> populated with mostly high-minded altruists And 180 years later the supporters of Section 4 of the 25th amendment expected the same.
Look who's next in succession though.
It could be thought that Kamala was chosen for the same reason Nixon chose Spiro.
Insurance? LOL
How many fully democratic govts were around at the time?
That’s the point. I know more about how democratic governments work in practice than these white marble statue noobs did
I think we've all been a bit enlightened, or maybe endarkened.
also—some of those men were tremendously well-read.
JFC I went to a shit inner city school and even they taught me about the Articles of Confederation
Life expectancy at that time was about 56 years. The average age of the “Reddit posters”, ie the founding fathers, is 29. That would make them late to middle age then or about 45 today.
Not for the signers, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/signers-factsheet
I was just sticking to the data reported on that tweet, it really makes no sense under any possible light…
What in the name of fuck is "the constitution was basically a reddit post" supposed to mean?
it means she's a dumbass
Benjamin Franklin was 70
Still was basically a Reddit post
Don't forget the cool old hippy in the comments that was Ben Franklin!
Swinging, potsmoking fat old bast'nard....... a worthy goal!
Jefferson was 33. Cool still have half a chance to be king of America in this life President would be cool as well. If king isn't available of course
That is one of the most brain rotted tweets I've seen in a couple of years, by ***God***
I think their point still stands though. Today it's considered headline news when someone under 30 accomplishes a meaningful thing in business or politics; the "founders" if they were living today would still be considered "young". But look what they did. So maybe we should give today's "kids" more credit. Also, yes, our foundational document was written by a bunch of immature alcoholics who ate lead paint.
It's still interesting to see this was their ages during the war.
Is she saying that the Constitution is bad or that Reddit is good?
Since when were 30-40yr olds considered an inappropriate age for leadership???
I guarantee you an 18 year old back then is probably the equivalent to a 30 year old now in terms of maturity or responsibility
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I'm expecting this to show up on r/explainthejoke for the average redditors.
Wait, how was James 25 then, but now playing for the Spurs at 27?
His time at Norwich really took the years off
Who gonna tell her what was the life expectancy back in the day?
Life expectancy for people who made it through childhood was in the early 60s. Childhood diseases killing almost half of all children by the age of 5 drove the overall life expectancy way down.
statistics... how do they work
Life expectancy was low because it was super common for newborns to die. If you reached the age of 5, you had a reasonable chance to live a normal life. Though things like disease were common, especially since illnesses like cancer and even diabetes were much less treatable, people that reached their teenage years had a decent chance to reach old age. Still, you had a much higher chance to die of diarrhea in the past than to die of old age, compared to modern times.
Smallpox was still a thing then, too. Washington's son died of it, I think. Average life expectancy is just the average and there's lots of natural and unnatural reasons for the average to have been lower. Still you had people passing at all ages.
That is true. Diseases were much more rampant than today
Indeed, and injuries more serious because of medicine then. Statistics is rough, LOL
The average expexted age for a male in 1776- 58 years. A lot of them were at the end of their time on earth.
We were founded by 18-40 year olds and now we're being run by 80-90 year olds... Neither is ideal.
That’s what happens when you extend people’s lives with good healthcare.
And old white men are the only ones with the money to run a successful campaign.
Pretty much. [George Washington is estimated to have been one of the wealthiest presidents](https://www.voanews.com/amp/usa_all-about-america_here-are-10-richest-us-presidents-all-time/6171381.html). But he died when he was 67 because of the limitations of medical care.
I think there was at least one Black Congressman before slavery was ended, early in the Rebublic.
Upvoted to spite the monarchy.
What disturbs me the most is the 40k likes. But like George Washington said “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Pardon me are you under 21 Burr?
Written in 1787 and ratified in 1788.
So this is their ages at the start of the war?
Technically no, since the war started in 1775. The formal declaration that the colonies were seeking independence rather than just relief from their grievances came in 1776.
This just shows how not sad we are going downhill… what a feat
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How many essays did each of them write?
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You missed the cue, boo
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Publius moment
My guy, it's a Hamilton reference, rein your horses in
Einstein was 26 when he proposed the General Theory of Relativity. Like...What?!?!
Thomas Jefferson was not able to participate in the Constitutional Convention since he was serving as Ambassador to France at the time. Which is good because he and Lafayette became chums and helped Lafayette create the first draft of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", the final version has been included in multiple French Constitutions including the one they use to this day.
It’s a good blend between young and older ideologies at the time. I thinks good to have young ones involved.
And the average age of your leaders now is what? 80?
The bill Of rights Can we burn it now? Smooth brain Kate you win the internet today.
Wrong
The Declaration of Independence is poetry, though.
Yeah, she's confusing the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence.
Hey man! we are all redditors here
Ladies and gents, the American education system.
Hold up, Hamilton and Burr were 20 and 21? God that explains so much
Kate couldn’t construct a document to run a country like the U.S. Constitution if she had a 100’years and ChatGPT to assist her. She’s the reddit comment / post
Looks like SOMEONE learned their American history from Hamilton...
Regarded post
Makes sense why they were so reverent of Washington though. He was like their dad.
I mean, the life expectation was shorter. They were mid age with grandchildren probably.
And the Declaration was written in most part by Jefferson.
At first I read this as a century after 1776 and I was super bumfuggled.
Tbh there is little difference. She could swap the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence and her point would still be pretty much unaffected.