Is America Today Our Forefathers' Vision?

Our forefathers' vision of America is not exactly how it is today. When writing on the importance of law in the United States, Founding Father James Wilson stated, “Without liberty, law loses its nature and name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” This principle still holds today, especially as liberty has been questioned recently. Liberty was a founding idea of this nation, and even if our nation is not exactly as the Founding Fathers intended, liberty still holds.

America has dealt with a lot of change since it was founded. While the Founding Fathers outlined a specific vision for the nation, this vision has been modified with a growing population.

The most important change is efforts towards equality. When America was founded, women and people of color could not vote and had few rights. As social progress occurred, the initial foundation of equality laid by the Founding Fathers was allowed to grow. A vision of progress is what this nation was based upon, and the groundwork was formed by those who fought for this country to allow for this progress to happen. A promise of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness might not have been guaranteed for every person in 1776, but it is in 2024.

With the determination of our veterans throughout the years this liberty has been able to withhold. Because of the great sacrifice made by these heroes the vision made by our founding fathers has been able to change and progress. Without this progression we would not be the same strong country with great freedom.

Innovation is needed for liberty, and even though the Founding Fathers could not have imagined what this country could have become, that is not a bad thing. This promise of liberty is especially seen in our veterans, as they have fought time and time again for our freedom against all odds. Because of the people who have died for our country, rights for every person have been promised, which is what is most valuable for the future of the country. Even if the vision of the nation has changed, the principles behind this vision have remained the same, and that is what is most important. A nation built on the idea of hope and change remains today, and no matter what happens, the foundation is still strong and will still be there long after we are all gone, just as the founding fathers would have wanted.