We are proud of almost all of our history, but we must also strive to maintain our rights without infringing on the rights of others--it is a tight line to walk. The events below could also apply today in different parts of the world. We do not want to become the England of the past, today.

Independence left the Americans not only free of domination from abroad but also free to develop a society shaped by the political concepts born of their new environment. Despite the fact that the colonies in their revolt placed most emphasis on the recognition of their rights under the English constitution, they had in actuality been struggling to realize a new political idea of their own - self-government by the people themselves, the basic principle of American democracy. Another political doctrine they held also -the democratic doctrine of local self-government - not to be ruled by laws made thousands of miles away. The American spirit fostered the abolition of legal distinctions between man and man. The suffrage, limited though it was at the close of the Revolution, progressed every decade thereafter to universal suffrage. The "rights of man" concept was published worldwide, and within forty years all the colonies of Spain in continental America had followed the example of England's colonies. Where revolution failed in Europe, emigration secured for individuals the longed-for political freedom in the new world. For to America, from all sections of the old world, came lovers of liberty as soon as the Revolution was ended. Franklin, in France during the war, foretold the migration to America: "Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America for those who love liberty gives general joy."