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The Historical Roots Of The American Experiment At 250

Our nation did not start in 1776. Instead, brave and far-seeing men provided the seeds from which our liberties grew.

M. E. Boyd | June 23, 2026

Dangling atop the smoldering burn pit of history is the American experiment of 250 years. It dangles atop what history we know, not what history has, unfortunately, been lost over time.

What is that experiment? What do we mean by the phrase “the American experiment”?

We mean three separate philosophical legs to the stool of governance and civil society:

1.    The development of the person, not the group to which the person belongs

2.    Moral Law as the highest law of the land

3.    Federalism as the governing structure most amenable to liberty

Certain historic figures stand out in the development of this experiment.

Basil Cardinal Bessarion (1399?-1472)

When the Catholic Church split by schism in 1054 into the Latin (Western) version and the Greek (Eastern) version, it was militarily weakened. The debate causing the break involved whether the Holy Spirit comes from the Father alone or from both the Father and the Son as equals.

While the distinction may seem small to us now, it was not small then. The Eastern church in Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey) could not withstand a Muslim attack in 1453 (even with some help from Rome) and was destroyed. This event marks one of the large turning points in the development of the West, not for its sheer devastation, but for its........

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