The Founders: "A Florescence Of Wisdom, Character, Virtue And Vision That Has Not Since Been Equaled"

Here is an article worth reading from the WSJ's Opinion Journal. The author asks how the British Colonies and the American heartland of the late 1800s were able to produce such a talented, self-less group of men in the same place, at the same time in history. It's a facinating question.

Most people don't realize how unique the American revolution was. Most revolutions have common features. For example, they are initiated by outsiders who want to tear down the existing institutions. Also, they tend to be marked by a lot of violence -- during and afterwards (think of the bloodshed in the Russian Revolution after the Communists won).

The American Revolution was started by the American political and business leaders -- usually the group that is the target of the revolutionaries, not the revolutionaries themselves. Also, while (obviously) the War for Independence was violent, the aftermath was remarkably peaceful. There were only a couple of instances of violence once the new government took hold (e.g., the Whiskey Rebellion).

Anyway, back to the main point, if you get the chance, read this article. Here's an excerpt:

Like the heroes of the early Roman Republic and ancient Greece (Rome more than Greece) whom they emulated, these Americans discharged their obligations, as they understood them, by answering multiple vocations and duties, all serving a common end. They did not particularly count the cost. They were not concerned to lay up fortunes for themselves. They had small conception of what our own age calls (and is obsessed by) "stress." They were educated in the classics of ancient literature, history particularly, and in the philosophical literature of 17th- and 18th-century Europe--Locke, Sidney, Montesquieu, Hume. Many did not attend college: There were only nine universities and colleges by the end of 1776.

Yet they wrote with a grace and lucidity we cannot match. Their minds seemed clearer than ours. And they had also what was imputed to a great general of a later generation: the imaginations of engineers. They knew how to transform ideas into action, into policies and institutions.