On July 1, 1776, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, a delegate who had argued against the Lee Resolution — the motion to declare the American colonies free and independent states — called for the Continental Congress to postpone the vote until the next day. With a little rest, he believed, Congress could achieve unanimity.
Fatigued delegates huddled in establishments such as City Tavern, which John Adams described as “the most genteel one in America.” Quiet caucusing and whispered deliberations over defection took place in dining rooms, the bar, and lodgings where travelers stayed. Must they truly break from King George III? Many desired independence but questioned whether it was prudent — whether they should stake their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on a revolution many deemed bound to fail.
Two hundred and fifty years later, young Americans once again cheer for change. Their political heroes bellow for a new United States, unbridled by what they see as her capitalist subjugation of the downtrodden, her settler-colonial roots in the displacement of native peoples, and her inheritance reserved for wealthy white men and their children. Many are disillusioned with America. They believe the nation’s shortfalls began at the founding rather than representing a departure from its ideals.
Today’s socialist flagbearers — Zohran Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, and Melat Kiros — are roughly the same age as many of the founders were in 1776. There, however, the similarities end. The socialists speak with revolutionary certainty, uniform in their grievances and demands. The signers debated, delayed, and deliberated long after the shot heard ’round the world.
The insurgents represent the 53% of Generation Z who view socialism favorably, according to a new Cato Institute poll. The generation is also nearly split on communism. Six in 10 Americans look at the nation’s crossroads with consternation; they worry their freedoms are at risk and could be lost.
Bradley Devlin and his team at the Daily Signal have borne the flag for rarely spotlighted young patriotic Americans. Their new film, Sacred Honor, points the country down a different road. The hourlong film recounts the months leading to the Declaration’s signing. It chronicles the contentious effort to secure unanimous support for independence as Parliament’s taxes rose, war broke out, and colonies resisted cooperation.
“Everybody feels like we are at an inflection point in America, but we’re not quite sure if it’s a peak or a valley,” Devlin, who narrates Sacred Honor and is the Daily Signal’s politics editor, said. “There are two paths ahead of us. One can be toward social renewal, and the other could be toward socialist revolution.”
Civics is the preeminent battlefront in the war for the nation’s identity. Americans intuitively understand this. They want children to learn that freedom is rare and must be protected; that patriotism means loyalty to the country’s principles, not to a party; and that America’s history includes both great achievements and moral shortfalls. Only 8% said they would like children to view their country through the lens of the 1619 Project — that “racism and exploitation have been core to America since the founding.”
It is no wonder the generational divide over the American experiment coincides with a divide in civic knowledge. Almost two-thirds of Gen Z, 61%, did not know that the signing of the Declaration is the reason for our July Fourth celebrations, according to the Cato poll. By contrast, 72% of Americans aged 65 and older answered correctly. In fact, Gen Z Americans failed to answer six of seven basic civic questions, including “Who was the first president?” and “How many branches of government are there?”
Still, Gen Z revels in change, and its restlessness does not rest entirely on civic illiteracy. Dreams of homeownership have faded as the age of first-time homebuyers ticks up. Iconic cities, once a rite of passage for the newly graduated, now command a steep price of entry. Artificial intelligence threatens the jobs high school counselors told them would be waiting if they took on tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. Meanwhile, aging political leaders seem preoccupied with preserving programs prophesied to fail before this generation reaches retirement.
It is only right that Gen Zers should seek responsibility for their grievances in political office. They, too, can become statesmen.
“We associate gravitas and great things, particularly in politics, with much older generations,” Devlin said. “That wasn’t the case in 1776. The average age of the signers was 44 years old. There are several signers that are in their mid-20s, and many more of them in their early 30s.”
“I want to provide Gen Z and millennials with the confidence that they, too, are capable of great political things — that statesmanship is not something reserved for old men who sit around large oak tables,” he continued.
But a cynical view of the founding has co-opted Gen Z’s well-grounded anxiety about the future. It channels legitimate frustration into ideological conformity — the opposite of the prudent, deliberative politics that produced the nation’s mission statement.
America’s flirtation with socialism is no longer a question of whether its youngest voters will eventually “mature” into statesmanship. The age of America’s leaders may be geriatric, but political difference-makers are often young. The nation’s youngest adults must now choose between two models of youth in politics: the youthful statesmanship of the Founding Fathers — Alexander Hamilton was 21, James Madison was 25, and Thomas Jefferson was 33 in 1776 — or the revolutionary fervor of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were 29 and 27 when they wrote The Communist Manifesto. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were also young men when they brought communism to Cuba. Today’s young socialist insurgents, from Kiros to Avila Chevalier to Mamdani, have chosen the latter.
Many in Devlin’s generation were taught to treat the Declaration’s self-evident truths as merely self-serving truths for property-owning white men. In this view of American history, the sacred honor the signers risked was really white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalist fortune. Gen Z and millennials, proceeding from that assumption, concluded that they must shatter the Declaration of Independence and build anew in the language of equity and diversity. But were they told the truth?
The film moves to early August 1776, when the delegates gathered to formally sign the approved Declaration. Their expressions were somber, Sacred Honor recounts, because they knew they were “signing their own death warrants.” John Hancock signed in large letters so “the king of England can read it without his glasses and double the price on [his] head.” Virginian Benjamin Harrison joked to Elbridge Gerry that, because he was “big and heavy,” he would “die instantly,” while Gerry would “twist in the breeze for a while.”
The founders’ sacred honor at stake in signing the Declaration of Independence could not have meant only their fortunes and political stature if they also pledged their lives. Devlin offered his explanation, and as the voice in the film seeking to restore America’s civic mind, I’ll leave him the last word:
“The original draft of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson produces does not say we hold these truths to be self-evident,” Devlin said. “It says we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.”
“‘Sacred’ is paired with ‘sacred honor,’” he continued. “That is the last two words of the Declaration, the pledge that the signers make in the eyes of God and to one another.”
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“You might not think there is any honor bestowed upon Gen Z for them to sacrifice, but sacred honor doesn’t mean your money, awards, followers, or your credentials. The founders meant the fundamental honor within every single human person. That is what makes that honor sacred,” he said.
He concluded: “That is the sacred honor you must put up; the sacred honor Gen Z could lose if we don’t also make that pledge to one another.”