The Past Explains the Future: Hope and Optimism from America’s Founding

Major turning points in history often arise from a worldview which sees time as linear, not circular: a worldview which sees the world’s social and political trajectory as capable of changing, not as repetitive or rigid.

The revolutionary independence movement which appeared and expanded in North America in the 1750s was a forward-looking movement. Rather than envisioning an inevitable repetition of the status quo, the revolutionaries envisioned the self-conscious development of society and government. America’s revolutionary movement is and was hopeful.

As historian Stephen Tootle writes, America’s “political history is the fundamental basis of what makes America a land of hope.”

As Calvin Coolidge once explained, any act of truth-telling is an act of patriotism, because our system of government is based on a true understanding of human relationships. Truth and freedom were and are inseparable.

This forward-looking optimism is based on a sober realism: on a clear-eyed reading of history, which reveals humanity’s failures and crimes as well as humanity’s achievements and genius. “If the Founders correctly identified how human beings could govern themselves in a system of ordered liberty (and they did), then” citizens “should never have a reason to fear the true story of America.” The citizens of America know that America is not perfect, but they also know that America has offered hope and opportunity, justice and prosperity, freedom and peace — and offered it in larger quantities and offered it more reliably than any of the nations which preceded it on the face of the earth.

The narrative of the United States is a narrative of increasing freedom, justice, peace, and prosperity: continuous forward motion. Slaves gained their freedom. Women gained full access to the political process. Poor immigrants found a better standard of living.

“Searching self-criticism” is foundational, and in its proper context it is a hopeful exercise. National self-examination is part of the American process, because our constitutional system is not only capable of amendments and adjustments, but rather it is also based on them.

It is the adaptability of the United States which fosters hope and optimism. Unforeseen events, technological developments, and worldwide trends create a constantly changing environment onto which the timeless principles of the American Revolution can be applied. Citizens can be confident that these principles will find application in the future, and will benefit humanity when applied.

The Founders organized themselves and fought out of hope. They did not create slavery but laid the foundation for ending it. Subsequent generations immigrated here out of hope. Americans fought and died in wars out of hope. As Lincoln understood, “liberty to all” and the “promise of something better” drove people to work and unleash their creative energies, whereas nobody would fight or strive over a “mere change of masters.”

The American Revolution began in 1775. The United States was created as a sovereign entity in 1776. The Constitution was ratified and implemented in 1788. In a span of 13 years, American had created the world’s highest levels of personal political liberty, and the only country based on the concept of freedom. It was also the only country governed by an assembly of freely-elected representatives.

But America didn’t stop there. In less than a century, slavery was abolished. Women began voting in federal, state, and local elections in 1869. Already the freest nation on earth, the United States continued to increase its levels of freedom.

“Citizenship bestows both privileges and responsibilities,” adds Stephen Tootle. It is the responsibility of citizens to be familiar with America’s founding principles, and to transmit the essence of those principles to future generations.

A nation which preserves property rights and free markets preserves hope. Such a nation offers its citizens something which no other nation can offer: the opportunity for peace, justice, liberty, and prosperity.

Patterns of Events in the United States: History as a Narrative

Among the distinguishing factors that shape the nation’s history is the fact that “ideals drove America’s creation and success,” in the words of historian Stephen Tootle. The United States is the first modern state to be founded on ideas instead of on the hereditary claims of a dynasty.

By contrast, the other existing countries in the 1700s around the world were based on the fact that the right to rule was the property of a royal family. The property was passed down from one generation to another.

Because the United States was built on concepts, instead of on bloodlines, discussions of words like ‘justice’ and ‘liberty’ are central to the nation and its history.

As the first truly self-governing citizenry, it belongs not only to national history, but to world-historical history, to describe and analyze “what happened to the people of America once they governed themselves.” The word ‘experiment’ is often used as a label for the U.S. Constitution’s concept of a government composed of freely-elected representatives, and for the ‘e pluribus unum’ of American federalism.

The American Revolution owes some of its distinctive features to the un-revolutionary heritage that it borrowed from England. Americans applied concepts that had been formulated by British political thinkers like John Locke and Edmund Burke. The innovation was that the Americans applied these concepts more thoroughly and consistently than the British themselves had.

From Rhode Island’s 1652 abolition of slavery, under the leadership of Roger Williams, to the 1688 German Quaker petition against slavery in Pennsylvania, the nation’s ideals were largely in place prior to the 1776 creation of the nation. The Americans codified and clarified these ideals:

They fought a revolution to preserve an existing culture of self-government and further distinguished themselves by proclaiming their shared ideals. They governed themselves under a Constitution designed to put those ideals into action. When tested by slavery, expansion, immigration, and the challenges of democracy, Americans made the constitutional order work. When their brethren rebelled in order to create a government on a different basis, Americans preserved the system of ordered liberty as understood by the Founders.

The world of the mid 1700s disappeared with technology, industrialization, and changing global connections between nations — as other nations began to reinvent themselves on the American model.

The once-unique framework of a republic governed by freely elected representatives, a structure which made the United States a one-of-a-kind innovation among the nations of the world, would within two or three centuries become a common system of organizing a government. At the time of America’s founding, it was the only country to have elections in the significant modern sense. Now, many nations have elections.

The challenge of each new decade is to see how the United States will apply its founding principles to new situations. If it fails to find a way, then not only would the nation lose its identity, but the world would lose the hope which these principles offer to all people. “American political culture withstood the challenges of modernity and the various forms of totalitarianism that grew in response to it,” as Stephen Tootle notes.

How the United States applies the timeless axioms of its founding to contemporary situations is, Tootle argues, not only determines its domestic policy, but rather also becomes its foreign policy, as America allows the rest of the world to observe the ongoing experiment in empowering citizens to vote into existence their own government.

“The most important aspect of American foreign policy is proclaiming rights and demonstrating self-government,” Tootle concludes. Creatively and innovatively, Americans applied their founding principles to concrete situations, and in the process, offered tangible examples of liberty to the rest of the world: Theodore Roosevelt’s hosting of Booker T. Washington at a dinner in the White House in 1901; Calvin Coolidge’s affirmation of civil rights for African Americans, as the first sitting president to deliver a commencement address at a Historically Black College in 1924; Eisenhower’s determination to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

The United States demonstrated that, by keeping government weak and limited, a society can work toward those things which all people desire: freedom, prosperity, peace, and justice. America showed that property rights and free markets are the necessary preconditions for liberty, equality, and opportunity.