A Brief History
On June 20, 1787, Connecticut attorney and a Founding Father of the United States, Oliver Ellsworth, made a motion at the Federal Convention to call the government of our new country, the United States of America.
Digging Deeper
While not an everyday name taught to school children as a major “Founding Father,” Ellsworth is notable for serving as a Senator from Connecticut, being a framer of the Constitution, serving as the third chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and even winning 11 electoral votes in the presidential election of 1796.
A patriot that served in the Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War, Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut in 1745 and died in the same city in 1807. He was educated at Yale College and the College of New Jersey, which became Princeton. The father of nine children, some of his offspring went on to also influence American history.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Castro, William. Oliver Ellsworth and the creation of the federal republic. Second Circuit Committee on History and Commemorative Events, 1997.
Toth, Michael. Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2014.
The featured image in this article, a painting of Oliver and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth by artist Ralph Earl, is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
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