Those are the opening words of the most important document written by human hands in the past 2000 years, the Declaration of Independence. That historic work of political rhetoric was proclaimed on this day a quarter of a millennium ago, marking a crossing of the proverbial Rubicon into outright revolution against the British Crown and the eventual creation of the United States of America. This was also a burn-the-boats moment for the men who signed it, as they had just attached “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to an attestation of treason. The immortal Benjamin Franklin recognized this, remarking (perhaps apocryphally) upon the signing of the Declaration in Philadelphia that now “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” The risk was palpably real, as the British were on the march and the Continentals on the retreat for most of the war to that point – the Redcoats would go on to capture and occupy Philadelphia itself just over a year later. This immense dedication in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge would come to represent the best of America for the next, resoundingly successful, 250 years. Two hundred and fifty years is an incredible amount of time for anything to endure, much less a newborn nation, attempting to split off from the most powerful empire on the planet. Not only was the deck stacked against the Founding Fathers, the ideals that they centered their proposed polity on were historically radical. Personal liberty, human freedom, restrained government, and individual rights were incredibly groundbreaking concepts at the time and remain so today. They were beginning to be adopted by the elite intelligentsia in parts of Europe – absolutism was still the rage on much of the Continent – but never before had they formed the basis for a political revolution in the real world. The founding of America was an experiment in liberty the likes of which mankind had never seen. And its success was not guaranteed, as much as we tend to read history backwards and assume the glorious country that we live in today was set in stone from the start. But America has always been a contingent nation. A bold hypothesis – that a continental republic could be based on the ideas of limited government and individual liberty – constantly being tested against the harshest of trials, with no foreknowledge of the end result. Foreign invasion, domestic insurrection, political violence, constitutional crisis, economic depression, terrorist attack, natural disaster, total war, and more. We survived them all. Hell, we didn’t just survive; we thrived. From our earliest days as an independent nation, we have continually endeavored to make America a better place than it was for our forebears, all while retaining the same radically inventive and profoundly moral ideals they permanently etched into our national consciousness. Not only have we strived for that result, we have achieved it. We have defeated our enemies, foreign and domestic, all while safeguarding the things that make us truly exceptional. And we have done so over and over. There is no need to “Make America Great Again” because America never stopped being great.
America was great in 1776 when 56 men put their signatures to a document that would either change the world or cost them their lives – perhaps both. It was great when we asserted that the Western Hemisphere would forever be free of foreign occupation. It was great when we fought back the scourge of internal rebellion and demolished the slave power. It was great when we built the canals, railways, roads, and infrastructure that connected our nation and hypercharged our economic prosperity. It was great when we created the industries, invented the tools, and built the institutions that have lifted billions from poverty and massively improved global living standards. It was great when we traveled across oceans to defeat totalitarian, genocidal foes who threatened America. It was great when we expanded the promissory note of the Declaration to all Americans, regardless of race or sex. It was great when we consigned the ideology of communism to the dustbin of history. It was great when we sent men to the Moon – and it will be great when we send them back once again. America has always been great. What it hasn’t always – or ever – been is perfect. But no institution, polity, or nation created by fallible humans could be. Our nation’s founding ideals, however, are perfect. And nobody has ever explained that better than our 30th president, the great Calvin Coolidge, to celebrate this auspicious day one century ago.
Our individual rights, our system of divided powers, our federalist constitution, our restrained national government, our presumption of liberty, our ability to adapt while keeping our feet firmly planted in the soil of our founding, our pioneering and visionary attitude, and our resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. These are the characteristics that make us unique. Revolutionary, even. They are the foundational building blocks of our modern republic. Without them, our nation would be unmoored in a way that most others – based primarily on shared factors like ethnicity, religion, or language – would not be. We are, at heart, a polity centered on ideas and ideals. And, as President Coolidge so beautifully stated, those propositions are final. Unimpeachable. Insurmountable. Perfect.
And now they have proven themselves remarkably durable. They have endured, through trials and tribulations, for a full quarter of a millennium. Two hundred and fifty years. And that is not due to mere entropy, but the repeated exercise of human agency to consciously choose liberty – messy, complicated, risky, difficult liberty – again and again. The men who signed that Declaration understood what they were signing up for, but they knew it was worth it, no matter the cost. And they were incredibly optimistic for the future, despite the odds stacked against them. John Adams explained this eloquently in a letter to his wife Abigail in July 1776:
Our Founding Fathers knowingly set to us a Herculean task: to keep the republic that they made for us. For two hundred and fifty years, we have. Let’s choose that thorny, painful, profoundly rewarding path for another two hundred and fifty. Happy birthday, America. May you live forever in liberty.
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