According to revolutionary author, Thomas Wolfe an american is, “.... every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity …. the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing is his manhood and his vision can combine to make him,”. According to Google by definition, an American is “of relating to, or characteristic of the United States or it’s inhabitants” and I agree. Although I believe that an American is much more than someone who is born in the United States ,or is a legal immigrant of the United States. An American by my definition is a man or woman who loves life enough to want the best that it has to offer; it is he who seeks personal liberty, to live as he sees fit, to worship as he sees fit, and one that appreciates the land that the…show more content… It is someone who, regardless of how much they must struggle, will do so in order to defend the right that we are entitled of which in the Declaration of Independence. Historically, the leader of the United States set the bar for the desirable characteristic of an American; however, today we have a leader that seems to exhibit none of those qualities. In his speech ‘Give me liberty or Give me death’, Patrick Henry set the bar as to what an American should be. “Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” Patrick Henry’s idea of what an American should be was brought up many times through his speeches and actions for the American Revolution. He believed