A New Birth

Since our families never give us everything we want or need, we look for sufficiency in surrogates — adopted families of friends, mentors, or figures of history and myth. For a boy in early-19th-century America the handiest surrogates, great enough to be awe-inspiring, near enough to be familiar, were the Founding Fathers.

“Father of his country” — pater patriae — was an honorific bestowed by the Roman Senate on Camillus, a general of the fourth century b.c., who earned it by refounding the city after driving out an invasion of Gauls. Americans revived and pluralized the terms “father” and “founder” to honor the heroes of the Revolution.