The American Dream of the Founding Fathers The Graph Op-ED, February 2, 2011 Do you own a big house? Drive a fancy car? Have a great job? If you answered “yes” to any of these, you probably think that you are living the American Dream. But what about the dreams of Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and the rest of the Founding Fathers? Did George Washington think that building Mt. Vernon was his crowning achievement? Did John Adams view his presidency as his claim to fame? Did Benjamin Franklin die a satisfied man because he flew a kite in a thunderstorm? Sadly, the “American Dream” has been morphed and distorted over the past several decades, to a point that the Fathers wouldn’t even recognize it. That nice job you have with the corner office and personal secretary? And the nice car you drive around in and the big house that you call home? They do not define whether a person is living the American Dream or not. Rather, they are the potential results of it. The original American Dream, the dream of the founding fathers, is far greater than all of these things. This great country of ours was built not on the ability to attain notoriety or worldly possessions, but on principles. And those principles could then in turn lead to possessions and notoriety. In his essay “The American Dream”, found in the 1973 issue of the The Freeman, John E. Nestler observed, “Whereas the American Dream was once equated with certain principles of freedom, it is now equated with things. The American Dream has undergone a metamorphosis from principles to materialism…. When people are concerned more with the attainment of things than with the maintenance of principles, it is a sign of moral decay. And it is through such decay that loss of freedom occurs.” We need to be reminded, as a nation, that the Founding Fathers gave up material wealth and substance for something that was far, far greater to them. In their minds, liberty – and all of the possible risks associated with liberty – was far more desirable than material things and prosperity, especially if that prosperity came with collectivism or despotism. They felt so strongly about this in fact, that they were willing to give up their wealth to ensure liberty and freedom for themselves and future generations. Material gain and public fame are only a fruit of freedom, not its root. Liberty, above all things, was the dream that the Founding Fathers had for their new country. But it was more than a dream to them. Solomon once said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” To the founders, this was a vision. Behind everything that motivated them was their belief in equality and unalienable rights. From the Declaration of Independence, where they clearly declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. They believed that those rights came from their Heavenly God, and that the King and his government had encroached on those rights to the point that rebellion was the only option left for them. Samuel Adams declared at the signing of the Declaration, “We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient.

He reigns in Heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.” But we all know about this. It has been ingrained into us since elementary school. “We live in America: home of the free. We have freedom and liberty because we live in America.” But our freedom and liberty are slipping away. Tom Rose described it this way in his book, God, Gold and Civil Government: “Liberty is like a three-legged stool. It has three aspects, or legs: the Spiritual, the Economic, and the Political. Each leg must be carefully preserved. If one leg is shortened or cut off, the stability provided by the other two will be hampered or lost, and the ideal of Liberty will come tumbling down.” Today, only one of those legs remains strong: the Political. America is quickly losing sight of the spiritual aspect on which she was founded. And in recent years, our economic strength has atrophied. If we as a nation are to persevere in our liberty and maintain our freedom, we must hold fast to the vision of the Founding Fathers. The vision that all men are created equal, that we have rights which can never be taken from us, and that America is the place where these beliefs are celebrated and embraced. Then, and only then, will we be living the American Dream.