A Nation of Builders
America 250 is a chance to reflect on the men and women who built the country. Who they were. What they believed. How their example can guide us today.
Oceans of ink have been spilled on the subject, so we’ll just make one observation.
The Founders were builders.
For the past few weeks First Breakfast has profiled lesser-known heroes of the American Revolution. Their lives tell the story: A 25-year-old Boston bookseller who transformed into one of the world’s finest military logisticians and artillery commanders; a merchant who gambled his fortune to hold the Continental Army together (and who injected a healthy dose of capitalism into that army’s acquisition system).
The Revolution’s household names lived similar lives. Washington was America’s Cincinnatus, pulled from his expanding business empire at Mount Vernon to lead an army and then a new nation. Jefferson was not just a wordsmith but an architect, a farmer, and an inveterate tinkerer. Franklin was a serial inventor and scientist. The list goes on.
These were the men who built America. But it wasn’t just an exceptional few.
The colonies were teeming with Americans looking to make a name for themselves, to make their mark and their fortune (or at least a dignified, honest living), and to scratch a civilization out of the wilderness.
These Americans were restless, with a strong heretical streak. Always expanding, always hustling, always building. They caused massive headaches for the British government even in peace. They were nonconformists, in religion and habit. They settled where they weren’t supposed to. Traded with parties they weren’t supposed to (Loyalists complained that many of the most ardent Patriots, such as John Hancock, were smugglers—and they were right!). They were proud of their liberty and chafed at laws made by distant, unfeeling masters. Then they dumped East India Company tea into Boston Harbor, fired on the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, and rebelled against a superpower.
That, in a nutshell, is the spirit of America. If you look at the broad sweep of American history you can see that spirit at work as our nation has expanded. Manifest Destiny. The Transcontinental Railroad. The telegraph. The Panama Canal. The Wright Flyer. The Model T. The Arsenal of Democracy. The microchip. The Moon. The Internet. Reusable rockets. Artificial Intelligence.
That’s just America’s first quarter millennium. We, the Americans living today, get decide what the next quarter millennium has in store.
America’s orientation has always been fixed: up and out. Our pioneers settled a continent, coast to coast. Our traders expanded our commerce around the globe. Our workers and engineers built cities to the heavens—and built flying machines to take us higher.
It’s easy and tempting to lower our gaze and fixate on our problems. They are real and deserve urgent attention. But Independence Day is our annual reminder of the virtues and spirit that are always necessary to solve problems, fight entropy, and ascend to a higher plane of civilization.
The Founders were builders. Build like them.