Character Traits of an Ideal American

Character Traits of an Ideal American

What makes someone an Ideal American? The idea has been pondered over by many people with differing views on what actually makes an American considered to be an 'ideal'. There are many different traits associated with the concept of an ideal American and various perspectives are used by people to come up with those traits. Some consider an American to be anyone who has the citizenship of the country but in reality being an American is not just having the citizenship; it requires more than just that. The character traits of an Ideal American, according to me, include ambition, independence, loyalty and hard work as the most important ones as they existed since the beginning of the country.

The American history suggests that since the beginning, the ideal citizen was one who did not think of settling for anything less than the best. When the thirteen colonies took over the task of acquiring freedom from the British and the founding fathers took over the task of getting independence, they exhibited how an American should be like. They showed that an ideal American is one who holds ambitious values and has dreams of innovation and in such a manner, this person sets standards not only for other Americans to follow but also for people of other countries. Ambition is very important when one wants to have something or acquire it and to get a dream fulfilled. The people and the leaders of the thirteen colonies also showed ambitiousness for freedom from the tyrannical rule of the British King with whom they had various complains (Ash, 2002). In essence, truly great ambition is what drove these colonies to declare independence and uptake the task of establishing a new country. Ambition of magnificent quality is what drove them forward and powered them to survive the hardships of the newly formed establishment.

Not only the founding fathers but such ambitions and many ambitious people can be found in the history of the country. One example of such an influential person whose ambition drove him to great heights was Abraham Lincoln. He had been an exemplary figure in the history of the country and his actions, policies and strategies are what we still see the effects of. He became the 16th President of the United States when his life history shows that he was only a poor ...