🎩 10 Founding Father Moments That Were Straight-Up Petty (Yes, These Are Real and Hilariously Petulant 🇺🇸)
Let’s be real: the powdered wigs were stuffed with drama. For all their lofty ideals and democratic dreams, the Founding Fathers also behaved like a group project gone wrong. Petty feuds, ego wars, and some A+ shade—these guys invented a country and the art of being extra.
So in the spirit of historical tea-spilling, here are REAL moments when America’s founding crew acted like they were one quill stroke away from subtweeting each other with a feather pen 🪶💅:
1. John Adams called Alexander Hamilton “the bastard brat of a Scotch peddler.” 🍼🛒🇬🇧
No chill, John. Hamilton’s illegitimacy was well-known, but Adams went full Real Housewives with it. Add some powdered wig-flipping and we’ve got a colonial catfight.
2. Thomas Jefferson secretly hired a hit poet to roast John Adams. 🐍🖋️
Jefferson paid newspaper writer James Callender to publicly smear Adams as a “repulsive pedant” and “hideous hermaphroditical character.” That’s some 18th-century Mean Girls energy.
3. Alexander Hamilton sabotaged his own political party because he hated John Adams that much. 🔥🧨
He published a 54-page pamphlet dragging Adams in public, hoping to replace him. Instead, he helped elect Thomas Jefferson, his longtime enemy. Petty AND self-destructive? King behavior.
4. Benjamin Franklin published fake letters under a made-up widow’s name just to mock people. 👵✉️🦜
Under the pen name “Silence Dogood,” teen Ben trolled Harvard types and Boston bigwigs in The New-England Courant. Think colonial Twitter, but sassier.
5. Jefferson skipped Adams’ inauguration because he was salty. 🍋🚫🎉
When Adams lost re-election to Jefferson, he peaced out of town at 4 a.m. and ghosted the ceremony. No handshake, no good luck, just ✌️ and a carriage wheel in the dust.
6. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton because…pride and vibes. 🔫🎼😬
The most extra response to an insult: A literal duel at dawn. Burr didn’t even win politically afterward—just committed murder and fled. Top-tier grudge-holding.
7. James Madison helped write the Constitution but then ghostwrote vicious attacks on it. 📜🖤👻
He wrote the Federalist Papers to get it ratified…then turned around and criticized the same document once he was in office. We call that “editorial whiplash.”
8. Hamilton & Jefferson’s cabinet fights were so spicy, Washington was exhausted. 🍿🇺🇸💢
George Washington called their constant bickering “disgusting.” He literally said they were making him sick. Imagine being so annoying you upset the first president.
9. Thomas Paine got salty with literally everyone and died bitter and broke. 🧂💀
The guy who wrote Common Sense turned on Washington, Adams, organized religion, and eventually…himself. He once said, “The world is my country,” which is poetic, but he couldn’t get buried in it properly because no one wanted his bones. Ouch.
10. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson didn’t speak for 12 years because of mutual pettiness. 📵🕰️📜
They went from besties to sworn enemies to pen pals again only after a mutual friend forced them to apologize like squabbling teens. They both died on July 4, 1826, just hours apart, still kinda trying to one-up each other from the grave.
BONUS PETTY SPIRIT ANIMAL: George Washington named his dog “Sweet Lips” and ignored literally all the drama. 🐶💋🎖️
While everyone else was busy being dramatic theater kids, Washington just wanted to hang with his hounds. He had dogs named Madame Moose, True Love, and Tipsy. Founding Father? More like Founding Further.
✨So yes, America was built on liberty, justice, and a whole lotta SHADE.✨
The next time someone tells you history is boring, just remember: these men wrote the Constitution and engaged in what can only be described as elite-level subtweeting with calligraphy.
🥂 Here's to the Petty Papers of 1776.
