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People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone of a success

People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone of a successful democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers Education of the masses was believed to be instrumental to avoiding tyranny of the majority which was a very real concern (especially since so many Founding Fathers came to America escaping religious prosecution as the minority faith). It's my personal belief that the difficulty in achieving "sufficient" widespread education ultimately shaped the decision to model America's self-governance after a Republic with non-elected checks and balances (included non-elected ones e.g. Judicial) rather than a more direct/representative democracy. The pseudo-perversion of the Electoral College leading to highly correlated Executive Branch elections with the popular vote I think undermines this system and heightens the education requirement of the average citizen. Also, on a side note, the lack of perfect information has significant effects on Economic systems leading to market externalities.

InitialLastName 10y ago
Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees? Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have clearly immigrated for reasons (business, military or education) other than religious persecution. I only see evidence of one (Daniel Roberdeau, whose father was a Huguenot living in the West Indies) having had religious persecution as a recent proximal cause of immigration to the Americas. The rest are unclear, although it seems that a few of the Presbyterian Scots might have had religious reasons for immigrating. So, short answer, if anybody else cares, virtually none (1-5%) of America's founding fathers immigrated due to persecution as a minority faith.
- gshulegaard 10y ago
  Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well documented. [1] > Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. Even from the article you link quotes a wide range of religious beliefs: > Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), 21 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).[19] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists. And of special note most of the prominent Founding Fathers most Americans would recognize were either anti-clerical Christians or not specifically Christian or Deists: > A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians such as Thomas Jefferson,[20][21][22] who constructed the Jefferson Bible, and Benjamin Franklin. > Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism". So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers. [1] https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html
  - InitialLastName 10y ago
    > So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers. For sure, and I didn't mean to be correcting you, I was just pondering what seemed like a sort of historical elision of "move to the new world to practice religion freely" and "founding fathers creating the USA" when the former predated the latter by more than a century. I like to try to grapple with timescales as a way to understand history, so finding conclusions like "the vast majority of the founders and framers were born in the colonies" (and, in many cases, from prominent families that had been in the colonies for generations) are interesting to me.

InitialLastName 10y ago

Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees? Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have clearly immigrated for reasons (business, military or education) other than religious persecution. I only see evidence of one (Daniel Roberdeau, whose father was a Huguenot living in the West Indies) having had religious persecution as a recent proximal cause of immigration to the Americas. The rest are unclear, although it seems that a few of the Presbyterian Scots might have had religious reasons for immigrating. So, short answer, if anybody else cares, virtually none (1-5%) of America's founding fathers immigrated due to persecution as a minority faith.

gshulegaard 10y ago
Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well documented. [1] > Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. Even from the article you link quotes a wide range of religious beliefs: > Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), 21 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).[19] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists. And of special note most of the prominent Founding Fathers most Americans would recognize were either anti-clerical Christians or not specifically Christian or Deists: > A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians such as Thomas Jefferson,[20][21][22] who constructed the Jefferson Bible, and Benjamin Franklin. > Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism". So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers. [1] https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html
- InitialLastName 10y ago
  > So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers. For sure, and I didn't mean to be correcting you, I was just pondering what seemed like a sort of historical elision of "move to the new world to practice religion freely" and "founding fathers creating the USA" when the former predated the latter by more than a century. I like to try to grapple with timescales as a way to understand history, so finding conclusions like "the vast majority of the founders and framers were born in the colonies" (and, in many cases, from prominent families that had been in the colonies for generations) are interesting to me.