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Democracy and the
American Dream: Perspectives
When the framers of the Constitution
drafted, ratified and implemented the Constitution to be
the supreme law of the land, they were creating a work
of history and politics and something that would last a
lot longer than many had anticipated. The embodiment of
the concept of a constitution was extremely radical for
several reasons. First, there was the placing of
priority power not in the hands of a person but a
document. Second, this was the birth of a representative
democracy. And, third, it was the birth of a coalition
that would place the power in the hands of people who
would elect those who were their representatives. This
was tremendously counter to what they were used to when
dealing with an autocratic, divine rule concept of a
king. The establishment of three branches of government
served somewhat as a political chess match with the
checks and balance system just to insure that no one
branch would be superior. However, at the very core of
the new found government could be summed up in the first
three words of the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the
people.”
Granted at this particular junction in
history, women had no political clout, though some women
had influence, African-Americans slave and free were
only counted as three-fifths of a person, poor white men
had no stake or claim to fame in society and Native
Americans for all intents and purposes did not exist
when figuring and configuring the United States
population. Thus, it was political egalitarianism, and a
fraternity that was based on property holding since this
class stood the most to lose economically and socially.
Nevertheless, as time progressed and as the Nation
expanded, rights were slowly accorded to the previous
marginalized and disfranchised persons.
When we speak of the American dream in
the context of this speech it is not the striving to be
middle, upper middle and wealthy class and the quasar
quality lifestyle to be a part of the bourgeoisie. It is
the dream to take hold of, embrace and live in the true
essence of what the word “freedom” means. Thomas
Jefferson in his seminal work on the Declaration of
Independence, opened the document with the words, “We
hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are
created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights and among these are, life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Thus, with the
rights that cannot be taken away or abridged we find
ourselves in a quandary while enjoying the best of times
and the worst of times. Though we sometimes may not be
affected personally, we know people who are affected,
teach people who are affected or just generally meet
people who are affected with the crisis of not being
able to embrace the totality of the “American Dream.” In
our country, we have a population of 299,398,494 people
according to the 2006 census estimate. Out of the
roughly 300 million people in America, in the state of
North Carolina 20.2% of children 18 and under live at or
below the poverty level. In the same year approximately
$6.6 billion was spent on back-to-school shopping for a
total population of 55 million students’ grades
kindergarten through twelve. More alarming in National
trends is the prison population which in July 2003
exceeded 2 million and more than 10,000 were under age
18 and about 10.4% of the African-American male
population aged 25-29 were incarcerated when compared to
2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% white men.
Hence, a somewhat balanced perspective
of the roots of democracy and the American dream have
been presented. It is up to us as Americans to change
the statistics and help all Americans live out the true
creed of democracy and to realize that the power lies as
President Abraham Lincoln said, “for the people, by the
people and with the consent of the people.” |
