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As Americans prepare to vote in the Nov. 3 midterm elections , much of the national conversation centers on which party will control Congress and what the next two years will mean for the country. Those are important questions, but a more consequential one reaches beyond the next election and our own lifetimes: What kind of America are we leaving to our children and grandchildren?

For much of our history, the American Dream was rooted in the conviction that the next generation should inherit greater freedom and opportunity than the one before it. Men and women crossed oceans, endured hardship, established communities and sacrificed their own comfort because they believed their children could enjoy opportunities they might never experience. They understood that the measure of a generation was not simply what it accumulated, but what it preserved for those who followed.

Consider the early settlers who crossed the Atlantic seeking religious freedom .…