For two weeks now, I've been considering starting another Master's Degree. Why? Who knows! I like pain? I thrive for the constant, never-ending, questioning of my scholarly abilities? My parents would probably agree with this assessment, but if I were married by now, I wouldn't have time to come up with silly schemes like this. But, the truth is this: I think I would like to get a Masters in the American Revolution. I cannot deny that I feel blessed in being a citizen of the most powerful country of the world. Call it hubris or adrogantia, especially in this day and age of America-bashing, but no one can deny that, like me, the Romans felt the same way about their empire and had every reason to do so.
The American Revolution was glossed over in the one American history class I took in high school. Things didn't get much better when I went to college either. It wasn't until I started studying the American Civil War that I realized the pivotal part the Revolution played in the nation's founding and the nation's conscience almost one hundred years later. Nor did I realize how much the Revolution and the nation's founding left undone that the American Civil War resolved. Like my all-time favorite, the late Shelby Foote said, "the Civil War defined us as a nation." Precisely because the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution failed to do so. Sure, it was a start, the Revolution was the first time American volunteer soldiers were conscripted to fight for their country; and the Constitution defined the nation as the United States (vice united states); and America was defined by its love of individual freedom; but nothing was done for the African, and the American Indian was pushed aside once its usefulness was exploited, and it took the blood and suffering of the Civil War, led by the greatest President ever, Abraham Lincoln, to forge the nation into what it is today.
Even with the unfinished business of nation-building, the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers offer a fascinating glimpse into this nation's true history, it's birth, it's very essence. Nowhere have such a handful of men been gathered and have succeeded in forming something that would shape the course of the world and human events for hundreds of years (God grant, we have hundreds of years more to come!) This nation has not since seen, and probably will not see, the nobility, honor, and integrity imbued by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. To them, the business of the day was not politics as usual but something much more significant and enduring. Something to last for all times, something to exceed even the Roman Empire.
No comments:
Post a Comment