History

I was a European History Major in college (Italian Renaissance and Medieval France), now that college is a number of years behind me, I feel the urge to find out what happened on this side of the pond (with all the rhetoric about separation of church and state, I want to know what those old guys that found this country really thought about religion and government among others things -even though I have a pretty good idea what our founding fathers thought of the mixture of religion and politics). I have already read, His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis which was a good primer to move on to the other fathers of our country, Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, etc (Bush could learn a few things about Presidential restraint by reading about Washington, that is if I had any faith Bush read at all).

Any suggestions of what biographies are good?