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Welcome. Founded & Forward explains, in plain language, what the United States was founded on and why those ideas still work. It's written for teens and adults of every background.

How we work

• Primary sources first. We link to the original documents: the National Archives, the Avalon Project at Yale, the Library of Congress and Founders Online. Every statistic comes from official data, with its date.
• Fair to everyone. We state other views honestly before we make our case. We never mock anyone.
• Corrections in public. If we get something wrong, we fix it and note the fix on our Corrections page.

A ten-minute tour

1. Read The Declaration of Independence in Plain English.
2. Learn how checks and balances work.
3. Browse Your Questions for honest answers to today's concerns.
4. Have a question of your own? Ask us.

The five pillars

• The Founding: the documents and the ideas.
• How It Works: self-government in practice.
• What Has Worked: free markets and opportunity, with data.
• Promises Kept & Unfinished: how founding ideals widened freedom over time.
• Your Questions: respectful, sourced answers.