The creation and implementation of the Untied States Constitution was a great experiment.  The first try at a constitution, the Articles of Confederation, failed. In 1787  the Founding Fathers began to redesign the government, creating a strong executive branch balanced by a legislature elected by the people and a judicial branch with largely undefined powers.  The Constitution expressed the ideal that people could govern themselves well, and that all people had the right to participate in a govenment designed for themselves and their posterity.  The Founding Fathers were acutely aware that the idea was a revolutionary one, and the successes and failures of the United States would be followed by other nations; some might even try similar experiments.  Today the results of that experiment can be seen world wide.  

 From the earliest days of the Republic, this nation's Founders believed that the United States had a special mission in the world. George Washington spoke of it on April 30, 1789, moments after taking the oath of office as first President of the United States. "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." The success of their experiment, these early Americans hoped, would hasten the spread of liberty around the globe.  Indeed, as other countries began to hear of government based on liberty, people began to speak of and yearn for liberty for themselvesand their fellow man.

Countries began to follow the United States' example.  In the first century following the Declaration of Independence, movements in France, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, as well as in Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina drew both inspiration and practical lessons from the American Revolution and its landmark documents. During the nineteenth century, the adoption of written constitutions often accompanied changes in governments in Europe and Latin America.  Rebellions against existing monarchies or dictatorships often became violent, but the idea of liberty could not be extinguished.  The belief that people could and should govern themselves grew slowly at first, then with increasing strength as more and more countries tried their own versions of the experiment.

In 1917, there were approximately a dozen democracies in the world. Today, there are more than one hundred, and most of them have written constitutions. While the charters of many of these nations vary greatly from the U.S. Constitution, its endurance and stability has surely lent encouragement and credibility to the cause of freedom-loving people everywhere who have labored to throw off tyrannical regimes and devise for themselves a system of self-determination and government based on the consent of the governed.

What began as a great experiment in self government in 1787 in the small, new nation of the United States has grown to a world-wide reality. The United States Founding Fathers believed they were changing the future of the world's governments by implementing a government based on liberty and consent of the governed.  Today people in many countries participate in  their own country's government thanks to the foresight of the authors of the U.S. Constitution.