Try organizing lunch for 56 people.

Somebody wants Italian. Somebody else is craving barbecue. One fellow read an article this morning about seed oils, so now fries are apparently a threat to civilization. Another insists he knows “the perfect little place,” which almost always means everyone is about to spend another 40 minutes in the car. Somebody else doesn’t care where everyone goes—as long as it isn’t the place the last guy suggested.

Then someone says, “Why don’t we just split up?”

Congratulations. You’ve just discovered why committees usually don’t accomplish much.

People are wonderfully difficult. We always have been.

Which is why I’ve always smiled when people talk about the Founding Fathers as though they all thought alike. We picture them in paintings looking noble and unified, as though they spent every afternoon nodding approvingly at one another’s brilliant ideas.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here’s what has always bothered me about the way we’re taught the Founders. History has a habit of sanding people smooth. It files off their personalities until everyone looks interchangeable.

John Adams wasn’t Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson certainly wasn’t Benjamin Franklin. Adams could be stubborn enough to empty a room. Franklin often used humor to lower the temperature. Jefferson preferred letting his pen do the talking. Some delegates wanted independence yesterday. Others weren’t convinced until every possible avenue toward reconciliation had failed.

Honestly,........

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