What is the “Expression of the American Mind” 249 Years After Signing the Declaration of Independence?

On May 8, 1825, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Henry Lee:

…when forced therefore to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. this was the object of the Declaration of Independance. not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject; [. . .] terms so plain and firm, as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independant stand we [. . .] compelled to take. neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the american mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. all it’s authority rests then on the harmonising sentiments of the day, whether expressed, in conversns in letters, printed essays or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney E^tc. the historical documents which you mention as in your possession, ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you will find, to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced in that Declaration.

When looking through the lens of younger Americans, it is understandable why they disregard our founders. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves; thus, he is canceled. Nothing to read here, folks – he was a despicable slave owner and the ultimate hypocrite – “all men are created equal” – yeah, right.

What they do not understand is that it is easy to have 21^st century moral superiority over 18^th century thinkers.

Many students of history understand how Jefferson struggled with the “hideous blot” and “moral depravity” of slavery and too many do not know that his original draft of the Declaration of Independence stated the following:

He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

BlackPast explains:

When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson’s passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. As a compromise, it was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George’s incitement of “domestic insurrections among us.” Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

But today’s youth do not want to hear it, and they will disregard the wisdom coming from America’s founders.

Back in the 1990s, I read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States that described the many horrors of our American past – like the genocide of Native Americans and our exploitation of other countries’ natural resources, creating mind-numbing “forever” wars.

Back then, I looked at patriotic flag wavers in the same vein as rebellious children do today, but the difference is, is that as a child-teen growing up in the cold war era, I read the real-time horror stories of escaping communism in Russia, China, East Germany, Cambodia…the list is too long. I understood that every country has its sins, and slavery was practiced nearly everywhere, by every race since at least antiquity. And it was Vermont who first abolished slavery in 1777, before the first European country of Denmark-Norway in 1803. Does that not embody the American spirit of freedom?

And, all the while, too many Americans are also numbing their minds, taking soma for their problems, rather than figuring out a better way to cope.

Yet, ask a legal immigrant and we might get different story altogether. What country is without sin? Through the eyes of many legal immigrants, America allows each individual to dream of a better life with hard work and ingenuity. They know full well what life under a totalitarian government is like. In theory, they make the best citizens, as long as they do not reach into the welfare honey pot, as no previous immigrant generations could do before.

So, what is the current American mind and spirit?

It used to represent self-reliance, like the amazing Americans, Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, who were actual slaves, who both refused to be victims, and studied and worked hard instead. If anyone was a victim, surely, we could say those two were, but they refused to identify as a victim and their legacy provided advancement for many more people. Is that not emblematic of what should be the American mind and spirit?

And since we are not victims, we would not want to leave debt for our children.

Yet, here we are, adding more debt to the $37 trillion national debt, as the BBB will do with $1 trillion for the Department of Offense.

Like Socrates recommended that we examine our own lives, Americans need to examine our own American mind and spirit, and ask ourselves, how can we be free and independent, when laden with such a huge national debt?