The much-discussed speech by Senator Obama on racial relationship in the US began: "Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words [We the People] launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy."
This is, indeed, a peculiar vision about "America’s improbable experiment" (a line that resonates with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) because the consensus among scholars is that the experiment had its roots in a more radical document, something that should inspire a politician like Obama: Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. The "experiment" indeed began in 1776, and the jury is still out to decide if the document signed in Philadelphia eleven years later was a victory, or a defeat, in the struggle for a "more perfect democracy" (a word that in the text of 1787 is nowhere to be found). Any historian, moreover, would have a lot of trouble in accepting what follows: "Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787." First of all, the convention lasted through the Summer, and not the Spring, but Obama's text gives the bizarre feeling that the delegates had just arrived on American soil when, most certainly, Washington, Adams, Jefferson or Madison were born in the colonies, had fought the British troops, declared independence, and organized a government: enough to declare the experiment "real," one would say. True, many historians do accept the mainstream vision of a country that badly needed a stronger national government, but Senator Obama should be aware of the large production of scholars who have looked at the constitutional "coup" of 1787 and reached very different conclusions (does the name of Charles Beard rings a bell?). Also, quoting only a tiny fragment of the first sentence, Barack Obama lost the chance of remembering his audience that the union was formed to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty," all goals that 221 years later are far from being fully achieved.
This is, indeed, a peculiar vision about "America’s improbable experiment" (a line that resonates with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) because the consensus among scholars is that the experiment had its roots in a more radical document, something that should inspire a politician like Obama: Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. The "experiment" indeed began in 1776, and the jury is still out to decide if the document signed in Philadelphia eleven years later was a victory, or a defeat, in the struggle for a "more perfect democracy" (a word that in the text of 1787 is nowhere to be found). Any historian, moreover, would have a lot of trouble in accepting what follows: "Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787." First of all, the convention lasted through the Summer, and not the Spring, but Obama's text gives the bizarre feeling that the delegates had just arrived on American soil when, most certainly, Washington, Adams, Jefferson or Madison were born in the colonies, had fought the British troops, declared independence, and organized a government: enough to declare the experiment "real," one would say. True, many historians do accept the mainstream vision of a country that badly needed a stronger national government, but Senator Obama should be aware of the large production of scholars who have looked at the constitutional "coup" of 1787 and reached very different conclusions (does the name of Charles Beard rings a bell?). Also, quoting only a tiny fragment of the first sentence, Barack Obama lost the chance of remembering his audience that the union was formed to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty," all goals that 221 years later are far from being fully achieved.
