[stripes1776]

The Catholic principles of Natural Law, Individual Freedom of Conscience and a requirement to act as opposed to merely professing good will towards one another left a deeper, albeit unacknowledged, fingerprint on the American character and form of government, than many would like to admit.

Your argument fails to explain why those Catholic principles failed to create the same results in Central and South America which were overwhelmingly Catholic. I think a stronger argument is that those Catholic principles gave rise to the politically oppressive and dysfunctional governments of Latin America. Without that overwhelming Protestant majority among the founding fathers, America would have been as moribund as Catholic Latin America.

[Natural Law]

"Your argument fails to explain why those Catholic principles failed to create the same results in Central and South America which were overwhelmingly Catholic."

How then do you explain the complete and utter failure of the Protestant Dutch colonies and the expansive reliance on the institution of slavery in the predominant Protestant regions and colonies?