Did America's Forefathers Assent To Fight For And Defend Their Freedom

Americans have often given their assent to fight for and defend our freedom. This is evidenced in American history such as the Boston Massacre, the Revolutionary War, and to the the compromises made in writing the US Constitution to establish our own country. In his famous speech, Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death…” He believed, along with other founding forefathers, that it was time to break away from Great Britain, and for Americans to govern themselves. With this belief, America’s forefathers assented and committed to free themselves from British tyranny, and to establish a country where people governed themselves and were free to practice their own religions. They assented to fight for liberty. This is what makes
an American, American, constantly fighting to ensure these freedoms. Shays rebellion and the Puritans showcased our country's origin for the necessity of freedom, while the counterculture movement showed Americans fighting to protect the freedom they had been promised. Through these movements and events, our nation learned the value of freedom, and recognized that every American must assent to something as a collective group in order to live in a utopia of freedom.

Puritans in the 1600’s were religiously persecuted in their homeland, Mother England, since they were the minority faith compared to the Church of England, (“COE”). They dissented with the Church of England, which sought to purify the “COE” from all Roman Catholic teachings. This resulted in the Puritans emigration to the New World. In this new land, the Puritans, who can be viewed as the first major society to be established in America (besides the Indians), were completely free from their religious persecution. They fought for freedom by coming to America and escaping the wrath of “COE”. In a direct quote from Of Plymouth Plantation, “delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof”. William Bradford, the author, was not only talking about the miseries of being at sea, but also the miseries of living in a land in which the Puritans were persecuted for their faith. This quote demonstrates the actions the Puritans took to separate themselves from the dystopia of injustice, to create a utopia of equality, faith, and justice. So, in order to make sure they would be living in a good society, the Puritans assented to a shared set of core values, and the primary source was the Bible. Through this shared set of core values the puritans, or first “American” settlers, assented thereby created an American utopia.This need to assent before creating a utopia would show up more than once in the nation’s history.

In the 1700’s, years after the Revolutionary War, and decades after the Puritans arrived in America, America was its own independent country called the United States.
However, at a closer look, America was becoming not so free, due to the standing central government and the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United States and granted states sovereign and independent rule from other states. Congress, the central government, was the last resort for disputes between the states. It did not have the power to levy taxes or regulate commerce. This was something that most Americans wanted in retaliation against King George III’s tyrannical central government that King George III had previously governed America with. However, the reality of a weak central government hurt its citizens more than it helped them. Shays’ rebellion demonstrated the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, and also revealed how the articles denied Americans the freedom they were promised in fighting and winning against the British. Through the unfair taxation of American farmers, laborers, and small business owners, middle and lower class Americans were becoming just as unfree as they were before the war. From this dissent with Boston tax collectors about the fairness of the taxation, Shay and fellow Americans assented to fight for their freedom of taxation with representation. Shays Rebellion gave notice to the politicians that change was
necessary. It was key to having the Articles of Confederation replaced with the US Constitution, which defined every American's freedom and in turn, created an American utopia of freedom. However, Shay’s Rebellion was not the end of how Americans continued to fight for freedom.

Centuries after Daniel Shays and his fellow insurgents led the battle for a freer America, a new movement rose to fight against the modern government, and to what they believed was unjust, and un-American.
The counterculture movement of the 1960’s involved a group known as the hippies. They were an anti-violent, peace loving group of people and very similar to the Shays & the Puritans in terms of ideals of freedom. In response to the tragedies and consequences of the Vietnam War experienced by Americans in the 1960’s, a mass movement to live a life free of violence took place in the USA. The hippies of the 1970’s dissented with American’s views on war, because for the hippies, participating in war compromised what freedom meant to them. All of the hippies gave assent to a core belief that violence was wrong, and that by being a bystander to the violence jeopardized the freedom that Americans centuries before had fought for. The counterculture movement fought for freedom by stepping away from the dystopia of violence and injustice, to create their own utopia of peace and equality, just as the founding fathers had decades
ago.

Our country was born of assent. To become “the city upon a hill”, early Americans had to break away from Britain's dystopia rule of injustice, and assent to something better, in order to create the type of utopia we live in today.