The Founding Fathers were absolutely not conservatives. They were, in fact, revolutionaries. Jefferson even supported the Jacobin reign of terror, ffs.
You misunderstand me. I absolutely DO NOT categorize the founders as conservatives. I classify those who embrace their ideas for constitutional government as conservatives. At least when I was younger they were. The conservatives of my youth, Goldwater, Buckley et all did not want to reunite with the crown. They wanted to embrace the principles of our early constitutional government; specifically, small government, the supremacy of individual rights, states rights and a balanced federal government.
The term conservative has become so distorted these days that it is almost useless. Can a conservative believe in a woman's right to choose? Can a conservative believe that the second amendment refers to militias? Can a conservative believe in higher taxes to balance the federal budget concurrent with reducing the size of government because both are necessary to reach the conservative goal of a balanced budget? Nowadays it would be said they could not. That if they did embrace these things they would be "liberals". Well the founders....were liberals AND revolutionaries.
So when I claim to be a conservative (as I said, if you had read what I said carefully) that I was a conservative I embrace those principles that the founder embraced. I believe in smaller government. This does not mean that I believe that the states may not act in place of what the federal government does now. For example several of the states had welfare like programs from the start. As a conservative I simply believe that it ought not be a function of the federal government except when absolutely necessary. I believe that the second amendment refers to the notion of regulating state militias as a check on vast central power. I also believe this is a notion that has lost its usefulness over time. I believe in the supremacy of individual franchise so that is why I oppose corporate money in politics. (The founders made it a felony.)
Simply put I believe that a REAL conservative attempts to conserve the broad principles on which our country was founded and improved through the amendment process. I believe that were Jefferson or Madison alive today they would be disgusted in the size of government and its intrusiveness into our daily lives. I believe their first comment might be, "where the hell are the states?.