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!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.” T
Certain ideals on the subject of equality that were held by the founders were pulled from revolutionary thinkers of that time. Madison offers! an institutional answer in Federalist # 10. Americans at the time of the founding would have almost unanimously conferred on the discussions of the preceding principles. Here he notes how “nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education (119). Equality, consent of each individual and representative government dependant on the people all became, like building blocks, the foundation of the American Revolution. Ultimately this idea about inherent, fundamental, liberties would find itself in the heart of the United States Declaration of Rights in 1776 because it reflected an expression of the American mind at that time. This being the case, then all must unanimously give their consent to be ruled not by one, but by the majority. This seed naturally began to grow and expand by the mechanism of reason into such ideas about legitimate government and, consequently, liberties that the governed retained within that government. These are 1) Ambition, 2) Personal Interest, and 3) Desire to ensure the public good. He writes it in this way, “that Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of dischargi!ng it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force of violence. Similarly, John Tucker in An Election Sermon in 1771 states that,All men are naturally in a state of freedom, and have an equal claim to liberty. Where that much is true, the founders also recognized the liberty of choice that must be retained among citizens of just government. ” In Virginia’s Declaration of Rights and Constitution in 1776 it is written,That all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, which means the acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety (188). No one, by nature, or by any special grant from the great Lord of all, has any authority over another. This then would lead the founders to attempt to form the first large democratic republic.
Common topics in this essay:
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Almighty God,
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madison notes,
federalist # 10,
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Acceptance Essays
