The American Dream and the Rule of Law

The Legacy of America’s Founding Generation

July 2026 By Russell Carparelli

This article discusses the American Dream and the rule of law as values that bind Americans together as one people and the responsibility of every generation to preserve them as American society changes.

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Our nation has been in a constant state of change for 250 years. The changes have brought challenges and opportunities. Generations of Americans have met those challenges and found opportunities—and they have pursued opportunities and found challenges. Through it all, the vision of our founders has been our truest guide and the glue that has bound us together as one people.

The American Dream

When people speak of the American Dream, they are often referring to things related to economic security and status: a good income, a home of their own, a quiet neighborhood, a good education for their kids. It’s about comfort and stability. But that’s not exactly what the “American Dream” referred to when historian James Truslow Adams coined it in 1931. He said the American Dream was “a better, richer, and fuller life for everyone,” and a society where each person could become “the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.”1 In other words, it wasn’t about getting rich, it was about having the freedom and the opportunity to become your best self—no matter where you started in life. That idea was not new. Adams was echoing and attaching a title to something the founders had already expressed in the Declaration of Independence, long before anyone called it the American Dream.

The Declaration of Independence

In the summer of 1776, representatives from the 13 colonies declared independence from one of the most powerful empires on Earth. Their Declaration of Independence was unprecedented in human history, and the signers were well aware of its historic significance. It was an audacious statement of inherent human rights, a rejection of autocratic rule, and a proclamation of the people’s right to govern themselves.

The Declaration listed 27 grievances against the British Crown and explained why the colonies were dissolving their political ties with Great Britain.

In a passage that many school children memorize, the Declaration said:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . . 2

This is the American Dream.

Fifty-six representatives from 13 colonies signed the Declaration. In the final sentence, they wrote: “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”3 Those words were not rhetorical. The founders were pledging to fully dedicate their lives to securing independence—knowing they could be hanged for treason by the British Crown if they were captured or failed in their effort. Deadly hostilities had already begun, and the founders knew that achieving independence could cost them their livelihoods, their homes, everything they possessed. And they pledged something they held sacred—their honor, their self-respect, and their reputations. Their intention was to establish human equality and human rights as governing principles, and to establish a government through which the people could secure and preserve them.

Washington Rejects Monarchy

The Revolutionary War lasted more than eight years. When it ended, the colonies were financially exhausted, politically divided, and governed by a weak central authority. But they were free—free to create a government based on self-evident truths.

History offered many examples of victorious generals seizing power, and there was some sentiment to grant broad powers to George Washington as king. Washington had led the Continental Army and defeated Great Britain. He enjoyed unparalleled praise and gratitude—and the trust and confidence of the people and their political leaders. The proposal gave Washington the opportunity to assume royalty and claim the power and largesse associated with it.4 Instead, Washington refused, resigned his commission, and returned to Mount Vernon.5 In so doing, he preserved the vision of a government that would derive its powers from the people and not from the predilections of a king or autocratic elites.

The Constitution

Eleven years after the Declaration, the founders drafted a Constitution under which government would get its power from the people. The Preamble explicitly states that the Constitution was established under the authority of the People: “We the People of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”6 The Constitution also divided governmental powers among three branches of government and made certain powers conditional on the agreement of two branches.

Three years after ratifying the Constitution, the states added 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, to protect fundamental rights and to limit the government’s power to deny those rights.7 And so, the nation had taken its first steps to fulfill the American Dream. But the Constitution was not true to the principle of human equality.

The Declaration that “all men are created equal” meant that all people are equally human and, by the fact of their birth, are entitled to God-given rights to live in freedom and to seek happiness. And yet, the Constitution denied freedom and fundamental rights to hundreds of thousands of Black slaves. The determination of voting rights was left to the states. In most states only white male property owners could vote. White men without property could not vote. Women could not vote. Black men and women—enslaved or free—could not vote. Black slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of state representation in the federal government and for federal taxation of the states.8

The Constitution created a structure to pursue the American Dream, but implementing it was and remains the unyielding obligation of the people, including those elected, appointed, and employed to preserve and protect the Constitution.

The Rule of Law

The phrase “the rule of law” is sometimes used to refer to the existence, enforcement, and compliance with laws necessary to maintain social order. However, monarchies and autocracies have and enforce laws and maintain strict social order. But the powers and actions of the government are determined by the predilections and interests of the ruler, not the consent of the people. The powers and laws of monarchs and dictators have often included barbaric imprisonment and murder.

For a written constitution to be effective, the people and government officials must accept it as the supreme authority for government action. The true meaning of the rule of law is that the law is supreme, and in the United States, our Constitution is that supreme law. When the American people are committed to it and our elected officials uphold it, everyone, regardless of title or position, is subject to it—no one is above it.

The American Constitution, even with its imperfections, established something that was extraordinary in the 18th century: a nation not governed by an unaccountable ruler or aristocracy, but by a Constitution. As John Adams said, a Constitutional republic is “a government of laws, and not of men.”9

That principle—government powers are established and limited by a supreme law and not by individuals or privileged elites—enabled freedom to take root in America and to spread around the world.

Without the rule of law, the dream of self-government would never become reality. And without self-government, the dream of equality and unalienable rights would depend on the discretion of an unaccountable ruler.

Governing a Changing Society

The fundamental challenge of American constitutionalism has been to govern a changing society while remaining faithful to fixed principles and constitutional limits.

In 1790, the United States was less than a quarter of its present size, and its population was about 1/100th its current population.10 Plainly, today’s America is much larger and vastly different than the America that existed after the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified in 1788 and 1791. Since 1791, the Constitution has been amended just 17 times. And yet, throughout those years, the geographic growth, and the increased population, generations of Americans and their elected officials have strived to preserve the Constitution and fulfill the American Dream.

At the beginning, the young republic faced financial instability, bitter political division in the election of 1800, and uncertainty regarding the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase. As Americans moved westward, expansion brought new territories, new populations, and new conflicts—each one requiring our elected officials to govern under our constitutional structure and principles. The most obvious failure was the presence of 700,000 slaves in a nation that had declared equality and unalienable rights. Every new state, every new compromise, every new mile of westward settlement reopened the same unresolved question—whether a nation founded on equality and unalienable rights could endure while denying freedom to hundreds of thousands of people. The challenge was not solved through legislation under the constitutional structure. Instead, 11 states renounced their allegiance to the Constitution and seceded from the Union.

Great Task

President Abraham Lincoln was committed to the self-evident truth of the equality of all men. He believed that the Declaration was not only a proclamation of independence, but a proclamation of the moral foundation of the nation. In 1857, in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, he said:

I think the authors [of the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men . . . . This they said, and this [they] meant. . . . They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, . . . augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.11

Lincoln knew that the Constitutional Convention had compromised the principles of equality, unalienable rights, and self-government. The secession of the southern states forced the nation to address that compromise. At the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield, Lincoln called on the American people to dedicate themselves to the “great task” of ensuring that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”12

Following the Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were added to the Constitution. They abolished slavery, established birthright citizenship, guaranteed equal protection of the laws and due process of law, and protected the right to vote.13 But many generations of Americans continued to be denied equality, unalienable rights, and self-government well into the future. Self-government enabled Americans to change the Constitution, but for millions of Americans, the dream was still not a reality.

One People

Geography and political boundaries do not bind people as one nation; shared values and shared commitments do—especially a shared commitment to preserve the Constitution inviolable. Shared values and shared commitments enable nations to overcome great challenges and to achieve great tasks. After the Civil War, Americans recommitted the nation to preserving the Constitution and maintaining the rule of law, but equality and unalienable rights remained a dream for many Americans who were subjected to personal and institutional prejudice. Since then, we have strived to preserve self-government under the Constitution and to fulfill the American Dream while enduring economic panics, recessions, and the Great Depression, but poverty has persisted. We have strived to preserve and fulfill them as waves of freedom-seeking immigrants have increased our population and enriched our culture and our creativity, but prejudice and racism have persisted. We have strived as constant technological and scientific knowledge have changed the way we live, but the transitions have brought hardship to many. And we have strived during wars far from home. Through challenges at home and abroad, generations of Americans have demonstrated their dedication to the dream of equality, unalienable rights, and government by consent. Many Americans have stepped forward to lead us to fulfill the dream—some, including President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., did so at the cost of their lives.

The great task is still unfinished and is now the responsibility of our current generations and as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, current generations of Americans must recommit to our founding principles, the rule of law, and the great task of self-government.

Self-government will endure only so long as we the people are united in our commitment to it. Each generation must sustain America’s liberty by meeting the challenges of its own time and by electing officials who will use the constitutional powers reposed in them to meet those challenges and to strive to preserve the Constitution and our freedom as they do so. Like our founders, Americans must pledge to one another that we will do so.

The American Dream is a vision of freedom and a commitment to the unending pursuit of freedom. It requires the shared commitment and determination of every generation of Americans and elected officials.

Shared Responsibility and Shared Commitment

The responsibility of preserving our Constitution and the rule of law rests with all Americans. Together, all Americans must choose self-government. We must fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship—by being informed, voting, and by electing fellow Americans who will commit their lives and their honor to sustaining the rule of law.

The founders who signed the Declaration didn’t know whether their cause would succeed. They didn’t know the greatness of the nation that would emerge from their bold declaration, nor did they know that the Declaration of Independence would lead to freedom in so much of the world. But they knew that equality, unalienable rights, and government by consent were self-evident truths. This was their dream and it is the American Dream, and each generation has strived to preserve that dream for future generations. As our nation continues to change and does so at an ever-increasing pace, we must all dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work and the great task of preserving the American Dream of the equality of all people, rights that our government cannot deny us, and a government of laws and not of men for generations to come.

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