The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 2 Summary: “Dream Charter: The Declaration of Independence”

Cullen explains that Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is the influential core of many American Dreams, from the American colonies’ 18th century revolution against Britain to the civil rights protests of the 1960s and beyond. Most importantly, the Declaration’s famous second paragraph, which includes the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” is the section of the document “that survives in collective memory and which underwrites the American Dream” (38). As a kind of constitution of the American Dream, the Declaration of Independence has highlighted the gap between current conditions and future possibilities for generations of activists.

For the US Founding Fathers—a group of men that included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams—the American Dream was freedom. Increasingly direct British supervision of the governance of the Thirteen Colonies, including the raising of colonial taxes to recuperate British financial losses during the Seven Years War, inspired pamphleteers like Thomas Paine to convince Americans that their arrangement with Britain was a kind of slavery—and that Americans would stand to gain freedom by leaving the British Empire. Before the Declaration of Independence was published, “the American Revolution had been justified in terms of preserving 150 years of relative autonomy threatened by England’s need for revenue” (46), whereas after the Declaration’s publication, the revolution was seen as justifying a dream of freedom to be gained in the future.

The author discusses the meanings that the Founding Fathers attributed to words like “equality” and “liberty” and points out the hypocrisy of slaveholders rallying for freedom. Although the Founders generally considered men equal in the moral sense (while women and people whom they considered “savages,” like the First Nations peoples of America, weren’t considered in this equation at all), they didn’t think that all men were equal in terms of their natural ability and virtue. For example, Thomas Jefferson believed that a republic should ideally be governed by men of talent and virtue who would make the important decisions with the blessing of other, less talented men, who would vote for and acquiesce to being governed by their talented and virtuous superiors.

Chapter 2 Analysis

Like the American Dream itself, The Declaration of Independence remains alive and relevant in the current day even though it means different things to different people and is often invoked uncritically. The idea of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” (a rephrasing of John Locke’s famous discussion of the right to life, liberty, and property) is symbolically powerful not just to individuals pursuing their dreams but also to powerful political and marketing forces that have co-opted the language of the Declaration to sell products and legislation to consumers and voters. The common-sense aspect of the Declaration makes it both an influential basis for action in everyday life and an opportunity for manipulation. In both aspects, it powerfully shapes culture.

Pro-revolution Americans in the 18th century—who, along with legendary political pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, argued that parting with Britain would free them from remaining the slaves of the British—were inspiring in their rhetoric and revealed the great early hypocrisies of American life: First Nations people, women, and many white men were excluded from active public life—and therefore from full freedom—in the early days of American history. However, the most blatant hypocrisy about the American struggle for freedom against the British was the existence of real human slavery on the American continent by white slaveholders who held African slaves. Compared to the problems that African slaves experienced as the property of their fellow humans—being forced to work for zero wages under bad conditions—the rally by free white men against “slavery” by British governance rings hollow.

Although the Declaration of Independence is today synonymous with American democracy, the Founding Fathers weren’t exactly interested in creating a democracy. They wanted to install a republic on American soil in which “people of demonstrated talent and virtue” (51) would represent the less virtuous and talented in a form of government that wasn’t a contrived aristocracy like the monarchy but a natural aristocracy based on merit. Although all men could tell right from wrong, not all men were qualified to run a republic. This mode of thinking is a direct threat to the modern American conception of democracy. The principles of universal suffrage and everybody having an equal say in matters that concern the nation would have been anathema to the Founding Fathers.