Convergence of Genius

My wife mentioned during a recent trip that our country's Founding Fathers were amazing. She found it incredible that our country had such a concentrated group of far thinking geniuses at the same time in our Founding Fathers.

I agree that it was a unique combination. They were living in a primitive colony, without all the industry, luxuries, or wealth of their mother country. Yet, they were the educated elite. They were mostly well read, in an era when that meant expensive private education that was heavy in Greek and Roman history. They (particularly Ben Franklin) were interested in spreading knowledge. Franklin's advocacy of public education and libraries, as well as his active printing press business, were all aimed at elevating the general public. The privileged and educated elite that our founders came from knew about classic literature, they were well read on subjects from Plato to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Knowing the classics, they knew what had worked in history and what didn't work.

When looking at the way they were being managed by their sovereign, they knew that this was the type of model that historically did not work, and they knew what kind of society they wanted, going back to the original models of democracy founded in Greece and Rome hundreds of years ago.

When you look at the different interested they had, it's a marvel that they were able to work together and compromise on so many levels. They had many distinct differences, but the largest was the issue of slavery. While they were opposed on some issues, they were pushed together in opposition to a common foe. If not for the sheer incompetency of King George and Parliament, they would not have been able to hold their coalition together long enough to craft a new country.

Our Founding Fathers really did made a thing of beauty. In looking at why the things England was doing were wrong, they had to craft ideals of what is fair. They had to decide what basic principles were right and would always be right and craft a functioning government true to those principles. They tried to do what was right and what would be right far into the future, not what was expedient and would help them in the short run.

Will circumstance ever bring such a strong concentration of brilliant thinkers and leaders with a zeal to overturn stale entrenched power again? Perhaps, given the right conditions. Let's hope it's not necessary.