A more complete understanding of the impetus to revolt in the 1770’s is made apparent in Governeur Morris’s comments about the French Revolutionaries not being capable of self government. He recognized that what distinguished Americans was the tradition that commenced when they started coming to the New World in the early 1600’s. They came to make their own way more or less without overseers such as accompanied Spanish expansion into the New World. Dumped on a wild and sometimes hostile terrain and dependent primarily on their own resources, they learned quickly to govern themselves. And having done so they eventually realized that a remote King and a correspondingly remote British Parliament were not to their liking. It is nice to be able to trace the philosophical roots from the Judeo-Christian to Locke to founding fathers; and similarly satisfying to credit faith, religion and God. However, the reality had more to do with the practical matters of surviving harsh winters, of ascertaining how best to share and overcome hardships, and a lot of hard work. With our present wealth and foolish quests for “fairness” “security” and the similarly fanciful goals of socialism we’ve seemingly forgotten what we learned in our historical gestation during the 150 years prior to our revolution.