The American Creed
The American Creed
The American creed is a collection of contradictory ideas having origin in the relations between British and American citizens in the eighteenth century. The American colonists, oppressed for decades by British law, started a war in 1776 to separate themselves from British domination. Equality, to be equal among themselves, but to discriminate against others; Individualism, to be free from Britain, but to depend on the world; Opportunity, to make their own paths, but to deny these paths to others; Nationalism, to love themselves for their victory but to use that victory to deny change are the tenants of the American creed. And America today would mean nothing without these ideas.
The Puritans were the first wave of British colonists, fleeing from a land hateful toward their religion. The Puritans wanted a new place to practice their religion freely, and they sailed across the Atlantic for it. But British tyranny, secreted away inside the ships, followed them, and when the Puritans touched the stretches of pines and vast beaches, tyranny touched those things too.
Up to 1776, the American farmers, lawyers, blacksmiths, and housewives stood and worked on American land administered by Sugar Acts, Navigation Acts, and Intolerable Acts British rule, not American. Their fate resided in the perfumed hands of nobles and kings. Gangs like the Sons of Liberty formed, and members beat and burned what they could to convince parliament of their intent; colonists terrorized by theft, tarring and feathering, and murder in order to persuade King George to leave them to their own government.
John Locke, the seventeenth century British philosopher, in his treatises on government provided the colonists the evidence they needed to justify rebellion. Thomas Jefferson, through Locke, later explained that tyranny "is the exercise of power beyond right,...
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