The founding of the United States gave substance to the ideal of representative government. It remains a work in progress. The U.S. Constitution wasn’t written until several years after George Washington and his colleagues won the American war for independence. It did not even abolish slavery until almost a century after delegates met to write the Declaration of Independence that hot summer of 1776.

Yet the country born in 1776 (or in 1790, if you believe the U.S. Constitution was really the beginning) put flesh and blood on the skeleton sketched out by eighteenth century thinkers.
During those times, Thomas Paine wrote:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered . . . “

It struck me that Paine’s words are very eighteenth century. Few kings are left today, and those who remain in Europe, including the ones Paine railed against, are constitutional monarchs. Britain’s parliament (its legislative body) passes the laws. The monarchy is more a symbol of the ties that bind the British together than the possessor of power.

The Declaration of Independence and Thomas Paine’s writings are woven through with the unjust actions of Britain’s soldiers and government of the time. Canada stayed on in the British sphere of influence and today is one of the most respected free nations of the world.

The crown erred, and the colonists, who had some good ideas, reacted with anger. Too bad the two sides weren’t able to reconcile.