As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, the fireworks bursting in our skies mark one of history’s greatest improbabilities.
In 1776, there was no guarantee that 13 divided colonies would defeat the world’s most powerful empire, or that a declaration penned in defiance would become the foundation of the world’s oldest constitutional republic.
The American experiment that we celebrate this week was never inevitable.
AMERICA’S SUICIDE PACT: WHY THE REPUBLIC MAY NOT SURVIVE ANOTHER 250 YEARS
Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin famously summed up the challenge that lay ahead in six unforgettable words. “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin understood that declaring and then winning independence were only the beginning steps. The greater challenge would be the continuous struggle to preserve liberty through the generations that followed.
History reminds us how difficult that task has been. Great Britain gradually transformed its constitutional system while France repeatedly replaced one constitutional order with another. Across the world and throughout history, empires have disappeared, constitutions have collapsed, and nations have abandoned their founding principles.
But the American experience stands alone. For 250 years, our nation has preserved the same constitutional republic while remaining the world’s foremost example of individual liberty and self-government.
How did this happen? How did the republic endure for 250 years when so many nations, empires, and governments have disappeared?
The answer begins with our founding principles, preserved in our nation’s two most important documents. While the Constitution is our governing document and provides the framework for the rule of law, it is the Declaration of Independence that serves as our identifying document. In just 1,458 words, it tells us who we are, what we believe, and why America exists.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” he gave the new nation more than a call for independence. Those words became our founding principle.
The Declaration of Independence has reminded each generation that our rights do not come from government, but from God, and that government’s first duty is to secure those rights. Americans, over the years, have returned to those principles as a reminder of who we are and what we aspire to be.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution provided the framework for self-government, but even the finest documents cannot preserve themselves. Franklin’s challenge was never simply to preserve a form of government. The real challenge has always been to foster a commitment to individual liberty among new generations of American citizens.
Our self-governance experiment depends on citizens who believe their country is worth preserving and that America’s founding principles remain worth defending, worth teaching to our children, and worth passing intact to future generations. It depends on people who understand and love liberty enough to defend it.
Free institutions survive only when free people choose to sustain them.
That spirit has carried America through our nation’s greatest trials. We endured and even emerged stronger through a devastating Civil War, two world wars, economic depression, terrorism, and periods of deep political division. Time and again, Americans have refused to surrender their nation or the principles that define it. We are a nation of people who, over the past 250 years, have never given up.
Two hundred and fifty years is an extraordinary milestone, but it is not the finish line. It is a reminder that every generation receives the same charge Franklin offered in 1787. As we look back on our history, the marvel of how Americans have kept this republic for 250 years is as significant as the challenge future generations will face to keep the republic for the next 250 years and beyond.
As we celebrate this historic anniversary, we should do so with gratitude for those who secured our independence, for those who preserved our republic through its darkest hours, and for the enduring principles that have guided our nation from the beginning.
AMERICA’S 250TH BIRTHDAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO CIVIC EDUCATION
The founders established a republic, but they never assumed future Americans would keep it. A generation after Franklin issued that challenge, our national anthem asked another question. “O say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave?” There was never any guarantee the answer would be yes. The answer came with the dawn. After a night of bombardment, the flag still flew.
After 250 remarkable years, our flag still flies, and the republic is still ours to keep.
Jenny Beth Martin is the chairwoman of Tea Party Patriots Action.