Like Dickinson and Franklin, Jefferson was one of the big talking heads in the room when the Continental Congress created the Articles of Confederation.

A plantation owner and slave-owner, he was at the center of a debate between Southern and Northern states. Congress had determined that larger and wealthier states should have to pay more taxes than small ones—but should slaves count as part of a state's population or part of its wealth?

Jefferson believed that since slaves were property, they should be counted like livestock, as an economic resource. (Yes. This insanely evil logic raced through the mind of one of our founding papas.)

Debates over slavery and the distribution of powers between wealthy and small states would continue to put pressure on the young government of the United States, and contribute to the shift toward the Constitution.

After the Constitution was drafted, Jefferson would represent the Democratic-Republican party as the nation's third President. He believed the government's powers should remain limited and envisioned a nation of small-time, independent farmers settling the lands to the West. (Source)

A self-educated intellectual, passionate about individual rights, Jefferson was the voice of his generation—just call him the Bob Dylan of the 1770s. (You know: if Bob Dylan had been a slave-owner.)