The only real American Dream was defined and written down by our forefathers in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence in 1776:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …
They had the courage to dream of a world and define a government that did not exist in 1776. A world in which all people were equal under the rule of law and all people had an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government they defined to rule over that world was a government which derived its just powers from the consent of the governed, a Constitutional Democracy. It was a dream which many fought and died for, but in the end, it was not a dream which they were able to fulfill in their lifetime. The world they dreamed of still does not exist, but in 1787 they did give us a government and a process by which we could pursue that dream. We are at our best when we honor that dream and follow the process they gave us to make that dream a reality.