If the people who gathered on July 4, 1776, in the Philadelphia building now known as Independence Hall were to look at the America of today, they would be pleased with the way the nation progressed over the past 250 years.
Sen. John Curtis made that assessment in the days before the United States was set to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Curtis, who is a freshman Republican, moved through the Park City area on Wednesday as part of a planned 250-mile walk through Utah to honor the anniversary.
“(The Founding Fathers) knew it was an experiment … I don’t think they expected this to be perfect, but for them to know their experiment became what it is today, I think would be pretty cool for them,” Curtis said in an interview with The Park Record as he and his entourage traveled on a pathway just off S.R. 224 near McPolin Farm.
He added: “Remember, this is the same group that didn’t get their arms around slavery, right? They know how difficult this is. And so the fact that we have problems today, I think they would understand that. But the fact that we’re the greatest country in the world, that our Constitution has withstood 250 years, I think they would be just amazed that we’ve evolved the way we have.”
Curtis, who served in the House of Representatives prior to winning the Senate seat, described the Founding Fathers as crafting a form of government that continues to work.
“I know people will find this really strange because they think we don’t function well as a legislative branch. They knew it was going to be hard to legislate. They built a system that was hard to legislate, and I think they’d look back and say that that balance between the House with two-year terms and the Senate with six-year terms, and 435 versus 100, actually turned out remarkably well,” he said, referring to the number of members in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Curtis also spoke about George Washington, calling the first president his favorite among the Founding Fathers. He said Washington, after the Revolutionary War, “had a chance to be king, and he gave up his commission and wanted to go home to his farm … That example of not pursuing power, I just think, is awesome.”
He continued, “He could have been king if he wanted to be king, and he knew that was not right for the country. If you go to the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., and look up in the Capitol, you’ll see him depicted up in almost a deity-like, and that’s how people viewed him at the time. … And he knew that wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t healthy for the country, and so he knew that people should come and serve and go home, work on the farm.”
The senator also provided an opinion of the United States of today, describing that many other places see the country as something to strive toward.
“I’ll be the first to acknowledge that we have our warts and things. We have our problems. But I travel to a lot of countries around the world, and there’s not any day where everybody doesn’t want to be us. Even on our worst day, everybody still wants to be us. And I said it’s because if you look at our Constitution, that’s our rule of law,” he said. “I was talking to my daughter about this today, and she said, you know, well, people can live good lives in other countries. And my response was yes, but your odds of success are so much higher here because of rule of law, because of our Constitution and because of so many things that are just fundamental to who we are.”