As I think back to the year 1776, I can’t help but wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of our nation today.

They fought to create a country that, in so many ways, should never have been formed, should never have functioned, should never have survived — let alone thrived.

Think about how long the odds were: a collection of farmers, shopkeepers, tradesmen and ordinary citizens volunteered to take on the finest fighting force in the world and, after eight grueling years, won.

Could they ever have imagined that those 13 desperate colonies would come together, gradually add 37 more states, and become the world’s premier economic and military superpower 250 years later?

My sense is they would not be surprised.

Here’s why.

Anyone willing to pick up a musket and take on a professional army after only weeks of training — leaving family, farms and futures behind — was already displaying the kind of courage that builds nations. Anyone willing to accept payment in a new currency that could easily have become worthless was not simply dreaming of independence. They were betting everything on it.

These Americans were not only dreamers. They were doers. They were people who expected hard things, accepted hard things and then did hard things anyway.

So why would their successors be any different?

Yes, beating the British would be hard. But everything about life in early America was hard. Many had personally chosen to cross an ocean and come to an unsettled land with no guarantee of food, shelter, work, safety or success. They bet on themselves before they ever bet on a nation.

They came to a society that demanded self-reliance. Over time, they built their own institutions, formed their own communities, founded some of the world’s finest schools and cherished the freedom and opportunity that the emerging America offered. None of it was easy. None of it was assured. But they never asked for guarantees. They asked only for a chance — the very thing the old world had denied them.

Now think about their journey.

When that freedom was threatened by British force, taxation, military occupation and forced billeting, it makes complete sense that these fierce, free-spirited, liberty-loving Americans would take up arms. They were fighting to hold on to what they had earned and what they had worked for.

By simply surviving those early years, they had built a generational toughness and pride — a belief that odds could be overcome because they had overcome them before. Hard was not a surprise to them. Hard was their normal.

That is why the answer to whether they would be surprised by America’s rise can be found in the finer points of our War for Independence.

Set the scene 250 years ago.

The British were using the colonies as a cash cow, imposing heavy taxes while deploying troops as enforcers to suppress unrest and take over private homes at will. Eventually, they pushed the colonists beyond the breaking point.

For that first generation of Americans, the choice became simple: This must end. And if it does not end peacefully, we will fight to make sure it ends.

The world must have laughed at the thought of a pedestrian militia taking on the British Empire. But when roughly 22,000 colonists showed up for army service, it was clear they were not playing pretend. They were deadly serious — even though they were facing a British force that would eventually grow far larger and better equipped.

They knew the odds were long. They knew the fight would be longer. They knew winning would be more than difficult.

And that was fine with them.

Because everything they had done in life was difficult. Why would independence be any different?

The fight began with promise at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. But soon George Washington nearly lost his entire army in the Battle of Brooklyn, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence had every reason to fear that their signatures might become their death warrants.

But Americans don’t quit. They adapt.

Time and again, this country seems to find the right leader at the right moment. In that moment, General George Washington was that leader.

He and his men pulled off a stunning victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776, and shocked the world again just eight days later by defeating the Redcoats at Princeton.

Those were not merely battlefield victories. They were proof of concept. They showed that this fragile American experiment had something inside it that could not be measured only in muskets, money or manpower.

It had resolve.

In the end, the resilient and resourceful Washington would lead his men through more than eight long years of sacrifice, setbacks, hunger, disease, doubt and bloodshed — culminating in victory at Yorktown and finalized by the Treaty of Paris.

Yes, it was hard. Victory was almost unthinkable. But for early Americans, nothing was too hard to attempt. Hard was expected.

So we return to the question we started with: Would our founders and first fighters be surprised that the country they created would become the dominant power in the world 250 years later?

My answer, based on our past, is no.

They would not be surprised. Dare I say, they may even have expected it.

Because despite our flaws, failures, divisions and detours, there has always been a belief among Americans that we can accomplish what we set out to do. We are not afraid to fail. We are willing to adapt. We argue, stumble, regroup, and keep moving until we win.

That was true when Washington crossed the Delaware. It was true when his army marched to Princeton. It was true when 13 colonies became a country. And it remains true today.

America has always defied the odds, taken on impossible tasks, and somehow found a way to prevail.

Yes, it has been hard. Yes, it has defied logic, but that has always been part of the American story.

And I could not be more grateful that it remains the case today — and, I believe, will remain so far into the future.

Brian Kilmeade is the author of six American history books and the upcoming book “Uniting the States: The Six Crucial Moments That Forged the American Miracle.”