Equality and the American Revolution
Equality is something Americans strive to provide and maintain... we always have. It has become a necessary part of our culture... even now to the point that when people think of America, they naturally think of freedom and equality. The foundations of this country have relied upon it, just as it was the created by the events in the laying of those foundations. J.R. Pole states in his book, The Pursuit of Equality in American History, that the American Revolution plays an extremely significant role in the history of equality in American society. "The American Revolution in all its aspects constituted an upheaval which was also a point of departure and reference for all subsequent definitions of equality; it was a major event in the ideology and rhetoric of world history." (Pole, 3) Pole suggests that the reason for the start of the American Revolution was an "outraged sense of equality." America was so offended by its mother country, England, that they put an unbel
ievable amount of emphasis on the very idea of equality; making it the "center of the nation's public morality." (Pole, 38) When the revolution was over, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution -- the framework of this nation -- emphasized equality so greatly that it has now persuaded the rest of the world that America is, indeed, the so called, promised land; the land of freedom. "But," as Pole states, "if we were to try to give the idea some formal definition it would be enough to describe it as a widespread, and often rather optimistic conviction that the social, racial, educational and economic differences that divide people... are not the most significant indicators of their true qualities or abilities." (Pole, 142) In other words, regardless of circumstantial differences, there exists an innate belief in American society that those differences do not make them any more or less valuable than anyone else. According to Pole, the Revolution caused what he calls the "Int
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 664
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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