Monday, January 27, 2014

Who Exactly are the Founders?

What do you think of when you hear the term, "Founding fathers?" If you're like most of America, you think of the people who crafted and formed the Constitution of the United States. Obviously this is a true statement. The founding fathers as we know them today were individuals who founded this nation conceived in liberty.

It is nonsensical for us to think they all had the same ideas about what that type of a nation would look like. Nonetheless, all throughout America, we discuss and debate about what the founders thought, as if they somehow had all the same belief about every political topic.

While the founders were sure to agree on some areas, we truly know that they still disagreed from time to time. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, for instance, are articles and papers both written by founding fathers from opposing points of view about what our government should be. Weak central government vs. slightly stronger one. Articles of Confederation vs. The Constitution.

We have records of debates between our founding fathers on areas such as these. The founders are not some nebulous entity that mysteriously agrees on every area of topic. They are a group of people crafting our nation with their different views, compromising when need be to create a workable government. We should do well to remember that when we discuss the founders beliefs on government, we are talking about many, not a uniform belief.

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