He's No Hater.

God's No Hater: an Excerpt From My American Heritage Paper 

            This nation would have never been formed without the Lord’s aid. Evidence lies in the threads and fibers of the country’s history, and the very foundation of this nation. Major events and evidences leading up to the miraculous development of the Constitution, and consequently the U.S. include the Revolutionary War, and the Constitutional Convention.

            Even before the American Revolution, the country was not much of a “country

,” but rather individual colonies. Very different colonies. Some were heartily for the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary cause, others were vehemently opposed to them. It took much convincing and effort to unify and arouse the colonists to arms in a Revolutionary War against their mother country, Great Britain. Unifying very diverse, individual states was a miracle in and of itself. Regardless of the terrible losses they faced, under the blessed leadership of General George Washington, the Continental Army was preserved by the hand of the Lord, winning battles - including one that ultimately ended the war - miraculously. For example, once, a British blockade was closing in on Washington and his men as they retreated, suffering many casualties. Before the British could inflict any more casualties, storm clouds burst into rain, drenching the men, and ruining their gun powder, now useless. During the night, as Washington and his men were secretly crossing the frozen Delaware River, a sudden dense fog surrounded them as the British were drawing close on their flank, making it impossible for the British to see or shoot the army. Further, on another occasion, with the last minute assistance from the French, the American and French fleets managed to block the harbor of the Brit’s next target, the Carolina’s. “With French and American armies before him and French ships blocking his escape, the British commander, Charles Cornwallis, had no choice but to surrender, effectively ending the war.” The fact that a sloppily patched together army of men, “untrained, ill-equipped…,” few in number, defeated the world’s strongest military force abounding in man power, and “every kind of wartime superiority - economic, military, and technological…,” it indeed was a miracle that the colonies won the Revolutionary War.

            With a victorious revolution behind them, the states made their first attempt at a national government, by constructing the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, states were a “firm league of friendship.” They became utterly diverse. They warred against neighboring states. They made their own international treaties. They even made their own currency. Individuals felt they were a citizen of his/her state, not the United States of America. Despite the rigid gap from state to state, somehow delegates of each state, except Rhode Island, showed up to Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. In the heat of the Convention, delegates were once again deeply divided. It is a wonder that after so many days of seemingly useless debate, so long a stalemate, and so many vehement, vein-popping arguments that a resolution - better yet, a compromise -  was ratified at all by delegates of such diverse, disjointed states. Thus our Constitution was born. According to Catherine Drinker Bowen’s book, the Constitutional Convention truly was a Miracle at Philadelphia. “ ‘Miracles do not occur at random, nor was it the author of this book who said there was a miracle at Philadelphia in the year 1787. George Washington said it, and James Madison.”

Resources

Hancock, Ralph C., ed. Just and Holy Principles: Latter-Day Saint Readings on America

            and the Constitution. Boston: Pearson Custom, 1998. Print.

United States of America. UShistory.org: Historical Documents; the Articles of Confederation.

           By Second Continental Congress. Independence Hall Association, 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.             <http://www.ushistory.org/documents/confederation.htm>.