The United States was born in a whirlwind of clashing headstrong leaders and rapid political evolution, not on the fourth of July 1776, but in the seventeenth century. This looks at the founding era from the points of view of these leaders, who happen to also be my mother's ancestors.If you want to know where the bicameral system described in the Constitution came from, where voting rights came from, also where the the first and second amendments grew out of, the answers will leave you surprised.