Indivisible 250: Understanding America's founding values and what's changed over 250 years

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- You’ve likely heard the ideas associated with the founding of America – like liberty, freedom and equality. So how do the values outlined by America’s founders translate all these years later and how have they changed?

Dr. Sebastian Graham is the assistant director of Purdue’s Cornerstone Institute for Civic Thought.

Professor Graham says that in the founding era, the founders were very well-read, pulling ideas and pieces from several political thinkers and intellectual movements while shaping America.

“They were really capitalizing on this idea that government should not be based on things like the divine right of kings, but that it should be a consent-based government, and that each person, or man, as they would have said, was born with certain inalienable rights. No one had a right to rule over anyone else just simply by their birth,” said Graham.

But the founders left their own indelible mark on the nation.

“I think the founders were political thinkers in their own right and very much innovating in their creation of America, and then especially a little bit later with the framing of the United States Constitution,” said Graham.

Kathryn Cramer Brownell, PhD, is the Director of the Center for American Political History, Media, and Technology at Purdue University. Professor Brownell says that at the time, the vision for the country was a narrow one.

“It's very much a vision that is constructed by and for elite white men who own property, and over the course of the next 250 years, there is this effort to make that much more expansive for those people, women, enslaved people who were not included in that,” said Brownell.

She says that at the time, there were powerful ideas about equality and freedom. But Brownell says the reality is that slavery was legalized and there was discrimination.

In the 250 years after 1776, she says there’s an effort to expand citizenship.

“So that juxtaposition between people pushing to be included to expand the parameters of who constitutes the people who deserve citizenship is very much the story of American history since the founding era,” said Dr. Brownell.

But the expansion was the work of those pushing for change. From calls for more democratic participation, to abolishing slavery, to women’s rights.

“So the democratic experiment, if you will, has become more inclusive and more democratic over the course of the past 250 years,” said Brownell.

Brownell says democracy has become more inclusive but wants to see that expansion continue.

“But what that also demands is a more robust information structure as well that people need to communicate to one another and to find out more information about what is happening in Washington DC, to have a relationship with their elected officials,” said Brownell.

She says information infrastructure has changed significantly, and the rapid flow of information has improved communication between elected leaders and constituents, which she says can enhance transparency and accountability. Brownell warns, though, that those in power sometimes seek to manipulate information–creating confusion between transparency and publicity.