Patriots Pen

Author's Note: I wrote this piece as an assignment in the writing lab. We were given a prompt of "What would I tell our founding fathers". I focused on the IT'S CLEAR method.

Imagine having very strict parents, hating the way they controlled you, and in turn, just moving out at 16 years old. This is basically what the colonist did. The founding fathers, the next generation of these colonists wrote the Declaration of Independence  to basically make themselves be set apart from their “parents”. Of course they were bound to make mistakes as a new country, but what if we, the people of the 21^st century, could communicate with our founding fathers. If it was achievable to give insight to them, imagine how different our country would be.

First of all, if I had the ability to talk to the founding fathers, I would want to say something personal to John Hancock: Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, you could’ve written your name a tad smaller on the Declaration. I mean, I don’t know, it’s not like you’re that much better than everyone so that you need a signature three times bigger. Although it is possible that you messed up on the J, making it abnormally large, and just decided to go with it for the rest of the signature. In the 21^st century, when someone says your name, my first thought is not about you as a person, I think about a signature. Also, could you tell your buddies to work on their handwriting. I know the paper has aged and faded, but still. It’s borderline impossible to tell what you guys are trying to tell us with that fancy cursive calligraphy.

In all seriousness , there are some points that are a bit confusing to me. All men are created equal. Meaning that all people, of all races, are on the same playing field; that we all have the same chance to succeed in life. Where does slavery fit in there? You would also have to recognize that it say all ‘men’… which would lead you to wonder about women. Maybe they would of liked to vote in the 1800s. Just some ideas to be considered.

For significant topics and insignificant topics, the ability to give our founding fathers information would be  valuable. Since that is not the case, we are stuck with our mistakes, but mistakes can be something we can learn from and how we reverse our mistakes can show who we are as a country.