Is America Willing to Be America?
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The birth of an ideal
After rejecting what they perceived as the tyranny of the English monarchy, a group of immigrants dreamed of a nation built upon a set of ideals. America was conceived as an ideal of how a nation should be.
While he did not sign the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet six months earlier entitled Common Sense that paved the way for it. Common Sense shifted the political landscape of the so-called “patriot movement” from reform within the British imperial system to independence. In proposing an ideal nation, Paine wrote,
…but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity — To begin government at the right end.
Where exactly is this “right end” from which to begin? Declaring the reason for the founding of America, the opening words of the Declaration of Independence read,
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected…
