Seven Events That Made America America Read Online Free PDF

unlike the media conglomerates of today, the newspapers and broadsides that the Founders read were relatively impotent, and almost always countered by a rival paper that took up the other side of any issue. By 2008, however, the mainstream national media had become almost entirely partisan and Democratic, so much so that if it were acting as a government-run propaganda machine, it would espouse almost the identical viewpoints. The pliant and malleable television and print coverage of candidate-turned-president Barack Obama has made a mockery out of “objective” news coverage. What did the Founders see as the role of a free press? Why were they so insistent about protecting political speech in the First Amendment?
    These seven events allow us to look at oft-overlooked points in our history not only from the perspective of their significance, but also from the standpoint of their conformity to the Founders’ visions, hopes, and dreams for this nation. In each case, I think it is clear that it is not always the declaration of war, inspirational speech, famous piece of legislation, or other well-known event we learned about in history class that has had the most long-lasting impact on our lives.
     
    Larry Schweikart
    Centerville, Ohio

CONCLUSION

    W e often forget that the Founders were living, breathing people—that they listened to music, ate and drank, suffered from physical pain and sickness, and paid bills. The genius of the Constitution they wrote, based and grounded on the Declaration of Independence, is in the framework of general order and broad principles it provides. The Founders did not want to dictate every move of the American people, and they trusted that later generations would interpret it based on common sense and, above all, religious direction guiding human virtue. Political scientists have long explained to students that the specifics within the Constitution are limited by intent, with the assumption that people did not need to be told how to conduct every aspect of their daily lives.
    Yet running a government, no less than running a country, demands flexibility. Too often, mischief has arisen based on outlandish interpretations of the Founders’ desire to protect the federal government so that it could provide for the common defense or address the failings of the Articles of Confederation. There have been three chief sources of the pernicious expansion of government, all of which are loosely defined and open to future interpretation. First, the preamble itself includes the phrase “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” What did the Founders mean by promoting the general welfare? Did they mean the government should regulate what people could wear? What they could eat? What kinds of interior illumination they had in their homes? How they traveled? Certainly not. It is absurd to assert that the Founders in any way, shape, or form ever intended government to become involved in the personal affairs of individuals. They had plenty of examples from which to choose if they wanted to include such nonsense: some of the colonies had sumptuary laws that restricted what clothing people could wear (for example, rich people could not wear anything that flaunted their wealth). These, however, were mostly the dying (and pernicious) elements of Puritanism, and none of the Founders sought to incorporate such classism into the Constitution.
    Many of the Founders, based as they were in the traditions of the English government, thought it proper to establish a national university or to allow the government to build and maintain roads. Although I would disagree, there is a case to be made for either or both as an element of national security, which is certainly the approach the Founders took. If building freeways and establishing a government-run university were all we had to fear from the government in Washington, D.C., most people would gladly accept these and