American Ideal

American Ideal

by Marilyn Mackenzie

 I was going through the pages that I have saved in my favorites files, getting rid of ones that no longer exist and sorthing those that do into categories. I came across the links for an entire book called

The American Ideal of 1776:

The Twelve Basic American Principles

by Hamilton A. Long, 1976

For those who are interested, here's the link:

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/index.html

It appears that this book was first written in the 1960's and that the last known copyright was as listed above - 1976.

It lists the Twelve Basic American Principles as:

1) The Spiritual is the Supreme

2) Fear of Government Over Man

3) Unalienable Rights - From God

4) Man Organizes Governments to be His Tools

5) Limited Government

6) Decentralized Government

7) Equal, by God's Gift, in Sight of Man and Law

8) Life and Pursuit of Happiness

9) Liberty - Against Government over Man

10) Private Property - Liberty's Support

11) Taxes - Limited to Safeguard Liberty

12) The Majority - Limited for Liberty

This book attempts to explain some aspects of the traditional American philosophy, the philosophy of our founding fathers, the designers and creators of the government and the documents that founded that government.

What is clearly evident from our founding documents, and explained in this book, is that our founding fathers,while they may not have all come from the same church all DID believe in a Supreme Being. That belief in God was the foundation of the beginnings of our country. It's easy to find quotations to support this.

On October 11, 1798, President John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

That is most likely our problem today. As a whole, Americans are no longer a moral and religious people, so not only can they not be governed as the founding fathers designed, they cannot seem to understand the concepts provided in the documents that began our country and our government.

Other people around the world understood that America was a brand new kind of place with a brand new kind of government. They were impressed with Americans and that's when they wanted to come here and become a part of this great new world.

J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur, a French immigrant who became a New York farmer said, "What then is the American, this new man? . . . He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds . . . The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.--This is an American. (from essays, 1782--Letters From An American Farmer)

It is obvious that in the 1960's and 1970's when this book was published, the majority of Americans still understood the intent of our founding fathers.

When did this change? When did the documents become something that everyone could misunderstand and misconstrue? When did our government start being viewed as a democracy instead of a republic? When did we allow ourselves to have Washington, D.C. take over and the states to take a back seat, entirely opposite what the founding fathers considered right and proper for our government?

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I'm glad I stumbled upon this link sitting quietly in my favorites files since 1997. I hope you'll take some time to read and chew and stew like I have today. Perhaps with our Presidential elections looming in the distance - but not too far - we need to understand what our country once was in order to envision what it could be once again.

I first posted this not long after I arrived at Gather, and it received 6 comments.  Lately, anything I post that has anything to do with the founding fathers usually gets over 50 comments.  I guess we'll see... 

The reason I was reminded of this article was that, in searching for a quotation for today's Daily Whine & Shine I found this quote by JFK:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.  ~  John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

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"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it." ~ Jeseph Joubert