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The most stunningly successful thing about the American experiment is that in the late 1700s, the thirteen colonies were hardly valuable at all. They had no known great natural resources, they were far from a jewel in the crown of the British Empire. The British were far more desperate to keep the profitable sugar islands than the thirteen colonies. That’s why upon the entry of the French to the war, peace was sought soon - and the priority was to keep the profitable Caribbean and control of the seas. In seeking peace, Britain was thinking with its treasury not its heart. War is expensive. And while losing the thirteen colonies was embarrassing, it was not the kind of hit to the British economy that losing other colonies would have represented. In stark contrast to the relatively barren North America, the Spanish Empire in South America had vast obvious natural resources. Spain extracted gold. But it never built anything to last. The United States of America proved what far too many countries are yet to understand today. The wealth of a nation is not in its natural resources. It is not fixed. The world is not zero sum. America became the wealthiest country on the face of the planet, not thanks to its soil - but thanks to the men who stood on it. The institutions they built - the English liberties they codified - created the basis for a stable, prosperous, market economy. Freedom under law. It’s thanks to the systems of government the founders built that the United States became what it is today. Were any other group of people - with any other ideas about how a society should be structured - to settle that land, America would be like any other country today. But it isn’t. And that’s thanks to the enlightened ideas of its founding. Happy Treason Day, cousins. 🇬🇧🇺🇸