Have you ever wondered why the United States of America is special?

This video describes some of the challenges Americans have overcome and how we are stronger together (or united) than we are apart.

Transcription:

America is no stranger to challenges, but as a nation of problem-solvers we’ve overcome a lot by working together. Look at the American Revolution: the British violently enforced laws on the colonists without giving them a voice. What started as some colonists pushing back quickly grew until many colonists agreed the King had violated their rights, and they united to fight against an oppressive government that refused to listen to them.

After the war was over, the founders had a difficult time cooperating, and America’s government wasn’t working. Everyone had unique opinions, but our founders knew they had to unite to keep their hard-won freedom. In 1787, they met in Philadelphia to create a functional government. George Washington led the convention and had a special chair at the front, with a sun carved in it.

They met from May to September in a hot, stuffy room in Independence Hall. They had very difficult problems to discuss and solve. As people debated, 81-year-old Ben Franklin worried that America’s experiment in representational government would fail.

At the end of the convention, Franklin told the delegates “I often looked at [George Washington’s chair and wondered] whether [the sun] was rising or setting. But now I… know it is a rising…sun.” Franklin recognized the founders had finally come together to create a working government that also protected freedom.

Franklin was right. They solved complicated problems in their day and gave us the gift of freedom.

America isn’t perfect. We’ve occasionally done terrible things. We can learn from our mistakes, and use what we learn to solve today’s problems.

When we learn and unite, our sun starts to rise again, and we get more light to see our problems and solutions clearly. With the problem-solving American spirit, we can do anything. We just need to do our part to remember our remarkable story and learn our government's founding ideals and structure. When we work together we can protect the freedoms we’ve been blessed with – today and for the future.