George Washington sets the nation on its democratic path. Abraham Lincoln preserves it. Franklin Roosevelt sees the nation through depression and war.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Franklin Roosevelt had to govern at a time of crisis. If you're going to make changes in the way a nation thinks, you have to have the ability to take the crisis of the moment and use it to shape an agenda.
Our nation was founded on the principals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.
My thinking is Lincolnian rather than Jeffersonian, Teddy Rooseveltian rather than Franklin D. Rooseveltian.
There is, of course, only one chosen nation. But Abraham Lincoln would call America 'an almost chosen nation' because he believed that America had a providential role to play in history, inspired by the example of God's ancient covenant people.
For starters, this country embodies something utterly unique: History's first democratic empire. Beginning in the post war era, we have used free trade and democracy to create a series of interlocking relationships that end war.
Whether his policy was right or wrong, he built up the glory of the nation.
Franklin Roosevelt was a great leader. He saw how to use the levers of power to affect change.
When the United States was founded, the very idea of a nation premised on democratic principles of freedom and tolerance was viewed by the vast majority of the world as an experiment doomed to fail. Dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies had for many centuries ruled the world.
Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.