Douglas "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

In some ways I could be described as an idealist, certainly in my early high school years I was. I believe that the founding documents of the United States ought to be what define the actions and philosophies of the United States. I believe that when considering going to war we must consider the values and "self evident" truths that we laid out in our Declaration of Independence. I see this document as one that defines how America will be, and the Constitution as a code of laws based on the principles laid out in the Declaration. Reading Fredrick Douglas' speech, I really believe that he feels the same way. We are a unique nation in that we have a document that basically lays out our philosophy, and we are a nation founded by individuals with, I think, a great amount of foresight and wisdom. Yet as we have grown as a nation we have abandoned the values of this document, and disregarded the wisdom of these founders, and I believe this is a mistake. In his speech Douglas is calling the United States a hypocrite, and I would have to agree. We claim to embody these principles of freedom, justice, equality, and we even wage international wars supposedly with the intention of spreading these values to others, but more and more it all seems to be a sham. From Douglas' point of view this is particularly obvious, and it remains obvious to this day. I don't mean this as a criticism of the US, I think we have the potential to be a truly beautiful country, but to do so we need to practice what we preach, we must endeavor to be true to our roots, and to exercise the wisdom of our founders when it comes to our decisions. We need to abandon our ideologies, and our grudges and do what is best for the people, just as we said in our Declaration of Independence: that government is by the people and for the people, with an emphasis on the people.