" A man's country is not a certain area of land, mountains, rivers, and woods but it is a principle, and patriotism is loyalty to that principle." I believe this quote from George William Curtis couldn't define patriotism any better. It gives me a great sense of pride know...

American Literature is written by people who call themselves American and at the same time shape what it means to be American. American Literature separates itself from other forms of literature because of its individuality and most of what is written about in American literature are things that r...

What is justice? How does a person know, or think they know, right from wrong in any given situation? The American Heritage Dictionary has two different meanings that define justice and truth. Justice is defined as the upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accorda...

The Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4th 1776, is one of the most important documents in American history. It helped to define America's values and its freedom, as it still stands today. The people of the 13 colonies had been trying to revolt from the power of Great Britain for 14 m...

We live in a country that was created on the foundation of correcting the minor problems of the countries before us that caused those countries to be non-successful in their justice-keeping abilities at the time. What I mean is that when the delegates from all across the early states gathered to wri...

In many ways, our founding father's idea of oppression differed greatly from Frederick Douglass' thought of oppression during his lifetime. Thomas Jefferson, a highly influential leader during our nation's birth, claimed that Great Britain, led by King George III, was infringing on the fundamental ...

For more than 200 years the American Constitution has served as much more than a framework of government. Our belief in the great document's guarantees of freedom, justice, and equality has come to define what it means to be an American. From 1787 to today, in times of both tragedy and triumph, Amer...

The two documents that define Enlightenment thinking, a completely new way of thinking, are the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. These two documents were written fifteen years apart, but spoke of the divine right of individuals, and these rights took precedence o...

A Latin statement commonly used in the Middle Ages to define the purpose of government reads: servitium propter jura, non potestas praeter jura. This succinct statement translates to mean, "service to and for the sake of rights, not a power exercised beyond or outside of rights." This ag...

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Americans went from colonial subordination to well-earned independence from England, but with that came the responsibility to foster a country based upon an ideology that had never before been done. The years following the Revolutionary War would be t...

America is such an immense and diverse nation that it is difficult to describe the unique qualities in a few words. The best way to depict America is by using a metaphor. In many ways America is much like a lawyer, they both can be characterized by three traits: hardworking, greedy, and hypocritical...

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most influential and well written papers in American history. This paper was written in order to have the colonists act out against Great Britain and it was very successful in doing so. Thomas Jefferson and the other important leaders of this time pac...

The American Dream is a term that dates back to 1931, at which point James Truslow Adams writes about it in his book The Epic of America. Truslow writes, "The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each acco...