A Republic of Scoundrels

The Founding Fathers are often revered as American saints; here are the stories of those Founders who were schemers and scoundrels, vying for their own interests ahead of the nation’s. We now have a clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation. However, within the Founding generation lurked many unscrupulous figures—men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others. They were turncoats and traitors, opportunists and con artists, spies and foreign intriguers. Some of their names are well known: Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Others are less notorious now but were no less threatening. There was Charles Lee, the Continental Army general who offered to tell the British how to defeat the Americans; John Connolly, a Loyalis