John Hancock was a very impactful founding father in American history. John Hancock was born on January 23 in 1737 in Braintree, Massachusetts. When John turned seven his father sadly died. There was no one to look after him at home so John moved to his aunt and uncle’s house and lived there. Thomas Hancock, his uncle, was very kind to John and sought to give him an excellent education at a Latin school in Boston. After he spent eight years at that school he went to Harvard college, graduating with a master's degree in the arts. When his uncle died in 1764, John inherited his wealthy shipping business and became extremely rich - one of the richest men in Boston! Later he would use his influence as a wealthy man to persuade many patriots to fight in the Revolutionary War for American independence.
John believed that the British were unfairly ruling America because Britain kept on passing tax laws like the Stamp Act (where every paper you print had to be taxed and stamped to prove that you were paying the right amount of tax for whatever you were doing) and the Molasses Act (Under this act…show more content… One of the things that the delegates were arguing about was whether the states or the whole country should have more political power. “Federalists” wanted the country to have more power. But “Anti-Federalists” were afraid of too much centralized power (having just fought a war against the power of the British) and preferred the individual states to have more power. These two groups could not agree in Massachusetts and so the state would not support the constitution. John Hancock along with Sam Adams were able to negotiate a compromise known as the “Massachusetts Compromise.” This means that Massachusetts would accept the centralized power of the country, but be able to make certain changes to the Constitution. Those changes are known today as the “Bill of
