You asked me to define "The American" and whether or not founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Payne, and Thomas Jefferson were the pioneers of the idea. The first major problem with this question is that Thomas Payne definitely wasn't American, after all, he was kicked out post-revolution for subversive ideas such as "Women Rights", "Banning Slavery", and "Atheism". The other hero here, Benjamin Franklin, was well aged by the countries actual founding. In fact he was eighty-three while attending as a delegate for the constitutional convention. Although he was a critical component in lighting the fires of the American Revolution (after all, he did invite a younger Thomas Payne onto a boat across the world in hope to start a better life), he died several years after in 1790. Ironically his last goal was a push for the ending of slavery, which he failed at. Our final "Great American" , Thomas Jefferson, was known to be a literary and technical genius. However he also was considered by many in his time to be posh, aristocratic, And generally out of touch with most of Americans. He also had a bad track record with freedom of speech, which kind of was the founding principle of the United States. …show more content…
Technically , none renounced their British citizenship, and only one of them even fought in the revolution. The ultimate problem with this question is that there is no real definition for "Being American". It could mean the official concept of either being born to a previous US citizen, or perhaps filling out the paperwork, but none of the men above did that. It could also however refer to a type of person, but this idea becomes a bit more