The story of America's founding is usually told through the same handful of names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin. But the creation of the United States involved a much larger cast—and some of the men who helped shape the country have nearly disappeared from popular memory.

In the second installment of our "Forgotten Founders" series, America at 250: Due Diligence examines the lives and legacies of James Wilson and Roger Sherman, two enormously influential founders whose contributions remain far less familiar than those of their more celebrated contemporaries.

James Wilson signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, became one of the first justices of the United States Supreme Court and played a central role at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He argued passionately for popular sovereignty and a government deriving its authority directly from the people. Wilson helped put the famous words "We the People" at the beginning of the Constitution and advocated for the direct election of the president long before such an idea had widespread support.

Yet Wilson's story ended dramatically. After becoming deeply entangled in land speculation and debt, the sitting Supreme Court justice was imprisoned for his debts, fled his creditors and eventually died of malaria while hiding in the back room of a tavern in North Carolina.

Jesse Wegman, author of The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution, joins Steve Herman and Bill Bernardoni to explain how Wilson became one of the most important legal and political thinkers of the founding era—and how his extraordinary fall helped erase him from the national story.

Then, Professor Mark David Hall turns to Roger Sherman, a self-taught Connecticut lawyer and statesman whose résumé rivals virtually anyone of the founding generation.

Sherman served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, the committee that developed the Articles of Confederation and the Board of War—all during 1776. He later became a key figure at the Constitutional Convention, where he helped shape the compromise between large and small states and pushed for a federal government based on limited, enumerated powers.

Sherman continued shaping the new government after ratification, serving in Congress and playing an important role in the development of the Bill of Rights. The only known surviving handwritten working draft of the Bill of Rights is in Sherman's hand.

Hall, editor of The Collected Works of Roger Sherman and co-editor of America's Forgotten Founders, discusses Sherman's political philosophy, religious beliefs, concerns about concentrated federal power and the reasons such an influential figure eventually faded from popular memory.

Together, Wilson and Sherman reveal a founding generation far larger, more complicated and more interesting than the familiar pantheon of five or six famous names.

Why do some founders become national icons while others disappear? And how different would our understanding of the Constitution be if we remembered the people who helped create it?