American Founding

            
            
             The Mindset of the American Founding
             Up and down the coast of America a brand new era was stirring. There were ideals that were prevalent throughout the new territories that would soon come into the form of a stated government. The men at this time felt obliged to lay before mankind their admission of certain fundamental truths. These men recognized as well as voiced that the principles at hand, in and of themselves, were not original. What was original was the way in which they were about to be applied to human nature and government. This is what would make them, the government and the time revolutionary. Jefferson tells us through a letter written to Henry Lee on May 8, 1825, that, “All American Whigs thought alike on these subjects.” These subjects included issues such as: equality, state of nature, government by consent, divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, tyranny, majority rule, representation, republicanism, liberty, law of nature, property, social compact, natural rights, civil rig!
             hts, religion.
             Equality was an idea that was not unfamiliar to the men who founded this country. They had been given equality by the king in England through what became known as the “Great Charter.” This was the Magna Carta in which the King of England in 1215 proclaimed the rights and liberties of all Englishmen. These rights were not seen as natural to all men but instead as a privilege that the gracious King allowed and recognized in Englishmen. This then became a charter that all succeeding Englishmen would look toward as a standard. The standard would eventually cease to be fulfilled and would become something in which Englishmen hoped to someday return to. The men that were behind the American Revolution were such men. These Englishmen saw the term Revolution as more of a “Restoration” rather than something new. They also recognized that the right to equality was not granted to them ...

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American Founding . (2000, January 01). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 00:38, March 19, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/62207.html