Since we will be celebrating in just a few days the first step that they made, let’s look at them more closely. It took two wars and 36 years before we truly were free.

They were the elite of their day. They were classically educated and were familiar with the histories of Greece, Carthage, and Rome. This knowledge of governing powers formed the context in which they made their decisions. They also believed that the 13 states held the most power. Some disagreed and were called “the federalists.” Some were lawyers and some were gentlemen farmers. Benjamin Franklin was the only one who did not serve in some position in government.

First, let’s learn what documents they produced:

• Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
• Articles of Confederation, November 15, 1777, ratified March 1, 1781
• S. Constitution, ratified May 29, 1790
• Bill of Rights, ratified December 15, 1791

They were only a few men who met in conference as delegates appointed by their states. There were 59 signers of the Declaration of Independence, and there were only 39 who signed the U.S. Constitution. They debated furiously for months in the wording of these documents because they understood their significance. These documents still are the basis of our form of government and how it is organized. These documents also set the rules and how the rules should be followed and the penalties if they were not.

Seven people stand out above the rest. They were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, These seven men understood that their efforts were only guidelines and would be subject to interpretation in the future. Battles over these interpretations have been numerous and have ended up in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also has reversed itself at times, such as the ruling on abortion that never was considered by the Founding Fathers. We live in different world than they did, and they simply could not speculate on how we have changed. Not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of social norms.

We get into the controversies of the “strict constructionists” and the “liberal interpreters” of how literal we should be in reading and applying the intent that guided the founding fathers when they published these documents. Of course, slavery was the big issue that they dodged, and it took a war to resolve that issue and to get an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, there have been 27 amendments.

It is somewhat of a miracle that we have survived as a republic with a democratic form of government this long. The founders set up a series of checks and balances in the structure of our government among the three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Some are concerned that we may be losing our democratic form of government and are drifting into an autocracy.

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