Maybe it’s the writer in me or the reporter or an overwhelming passion to express my opinion on political and social matters, but I feel the Constitutional right of free speech is worth dying for. So as we celebrate our American independence, I pay tribute to our Constitutional Framers: the extremely educated forefathers who showed future generations of Americans how to maintain a democracy in order to live and enjoy freedom … by first knowing how to think.
The Constitutional Framers were relatively wealthy which coincides with highly educated. These were men who as young boys studied a classical education, specifically the subjects of philosophy, astronomy, the sciences, math, Latin and Greek, theology, and even music. In so doing, they were to become men of diverse abilities. They could work the land and make it fruitful while designing and constructing their own homes and buildings, some still standing today. As practical as they were in their lives and livelihoods, they were innovators and inventors and most of all free thinkers, always curious about the past and the future.
Collectively they were most intrigued by the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, having thoroughly studied the languages as well as the history and downfall. Government buildings in Washington, D.C., reflect roots in democratic rule such as ‘government for and by the people’ as opposed to a king, electing representatives instead of bowing to a family dynasty, freedom to ponder and express and debate issues instead of punishing dissenters, and placing no restriction on the most private matter of spiritual beliefs and religious practice.
And here we are today living in America 2017. Each and every one of us should be ashamed. A nation built on so much promise, in time granting all people equality and the right to vote, yet elected leaders both Republican and Democrat cannot even discuss in a civil tone matters of national importance, continue to play games just to suppress the other side, lie and cheat and manipulate for political party victories instead of the good of the country. They have become assorted suits in love with hearing their own voices. All this nonsense at the expense of the very people they were sent to Congress to represent. And by represent I mean care for. They have forgotten our American roots, struggles, empathy and ideals. They, our modern American fathers sans stockings and wigs, have forgotten what it means to be American.
Washington 1776
When men signed their names on the Declaration of Independence, they committed the most courageous act of their lives. They knew they were doomed if the Revolutionary War were lost. These famous men set themselves up as known enemies and risked imprisonment, property loss, poverty and death. Yet they were brave, willing to fight for freedom, to set up a new democratic nation. They were probably unsure if the experiment in democracy called the United States of America would last even two hundred years. Yet it has, even with a horrible civil war and times of an angry and divided populace.
The most ingenious political formation the Framers created was the separation of governing powers. The three branches of government remain executive, legislative and judicial. But today’s Americans have forgotten all about the wisdom to divide power. Though we may forget about it, the U.S. president is not the most powerful person and in the end holds a position equal to Congress and the Supreme Court. It’s called checks and balances to ensure the president in particular will never take total control of the country.
Being human, the Framers must have had dissenting views among themselves on how to form the new nation and government. Yet they were gentlemen trained to listened to opposing views and suggestions and eventually would come together to sign and approve the same documents. This is how government gets done. Listen and counter, edit, scrap or rephrase. They showed us the way. But something has been lost in the last fifty or so years. It must have something to do with our officials’ various educational backgrounds and religious upbringing coupled with the supersonic tech age. Instead we have created a nation of intolerance, injustice, and most of all ignorance.
The Enlightenment
One of the biggest arguments while writing the Constitution was whether or not the vote should be given solely to educated men, men who owned land, or to every man including the poor and uneducated. The decision was to allow every man a vote. But in so doing, the Founding Fathers designed our nation so every American child would be guaranteed a free education. An educated population, well studied in various subjects and lifelong learners, was the key to maintaining a democracy.
Now we have a nation divided among the very issue of education: public schools notorious for harboring almost exclusively the poorest students and private schools supported by families who can afford it and believe wholeheartedly the separation is in the best interest of their own children. Our nation’s schools, it turns out, were of crucial importance in the minds of the Founding Fathers. We have let them down, allowing prejudice and ignorance to fester, along with mounting poverty and wealth.
In America educational opportunities are not equal at all and have created a nation of voters incapable of self governing. The times have changed greatly from the days of our Founding Fathers—of legalized slavery and racial persecution and inequality. But somehow Americans hold on dearly to a bygone mentality that makes no sense and holds no purpose in this age and time. In other words, when it comes to racial inequality and human rights, we know better than our nation’s Founding Fathers. Yet their intentions for the greater good of the nation cannot be ignored. When it comes to the needs and rights and desires of every human being, their words ring true.