The Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers founded the United States of America. It's hard to imagine just off the top of your head creating a new country, it's even crazier to come up with a country that would become the envy of all other countries. That's just what the founding fathers did. Hot off of the Revolutionary War win, the colonies found themselves in a difficult situation. They had to figure out how to create a country. They listened to what the colonists wanted and figured out ways to implement it into the constitution. Luckily, they had some help from other countries' constitutions. The founding fathers were very smart. They observed what worked in a country and what didn't. They took what worked and applied it to their constitution. One thing that didn't work at first was the dividing of power. The founding fathers, who feared strong and powerful central governments decided to give most of the power to the states. This didn't work because the central government was not able to do anything. This was not a bad thing though. This would allow the country to learn from its mistakes and make better decisions. The founding fathers were very wise. They set up the country to learn along the way. They made sure that things could be added to the constitution to make it more practical. It's hard to imagine that these Founding Fathers thought that far into the future when creating the country. To this day the United States of America is still learning. We can thank the Founding Fathers for creating a strong foundation for us to build a country on.




From what is taught it seems the Founding Fathers were confident and got it all right the first time, but that is far from the truth. The author compares the founders to skaters skating on thin ice. They were curious. They didn't have a clue how to create a country, but they were curious. The founders asked questions about everything. They wondered about everything. The author says that today we see the founding fathers as people who did not make mistakes and knew everything that needed to go in to creating a government. The author states that doubt was a key quality  of the American revolutionaries. The founding fathers doubted things. They doubted each other's ideas about the new government, but this caused them to think deeper. John Locke said that language was a big misunderstanding. Basically words can mean anything. This influenced the founders to make the Constitution not just words, but for people to interpret what the words meant, for the people to decide what the Constitution was to them personally. The arts and Enlightenment ideas of the time, had a great influence on the Constitution. The
 influence was that things can be viewed and understood in many different ways. Enlightenment ideas helped create and give the United States meaning. The authors main point though, is that doubt and uncertainty are what drives everything. Uncertainty brings questions, people sought for answers, and these answers create more questions. It's a pattern that continues and drives us on. So the truth is, this country was created on the foundation of not knowing, curiosity, and doubt, things we view as weaknesses, that are truly strengths.