The progress of America

Thoughts on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

Every country has a national holiday. France celebrates the storming of the Bastille. Mexico celebrates the revolt that began their war for independence from Spain. Sweden celebrates the election of a king. Belgium celebrates the ascension of one. India celebrates the transfer of power from Britain. Japan celebrates the emperor’s birthday.

America’s Independence Day is not the day the war began, nor the day it ended. It’s not the ascension of a leader, let alone his birthday. It is the day we declared our independence, in writing—the day we laid down the principles and the justification for our existence. It is a moral and philosophical holiday.

The Declaration of Independence is the greatest political document ever written, and the founding of America is a monumental human achievement. After thousands of years of monarchy, in almost every large-scale society, for most of human history—after all the tyrants and all the bloody wars of succession—a small group of daring leaders made a bold experiment in a new and better form of government. And they changed the world, setting off a chain of revolutions and reforms: today most of the Western world enjoys representative government, and most of its monarchies are constitutional or ceremonial.

The Founders did not know, could not have known, what would come of their experiment. They hoped that it would survive, that their fledgling nation would not become subordinated to the much stronger and constantly warring great powers of Europe, that the union of several independent states would last and not descend into fractious squabbling. They could never have guessed that the nation they birthed would go on to become the largest and most powerful economy on Earth, that we would lead the world in science and invention, that we would fight and win two world wars, that we would plant our flag on the Moon.

This 250th anniversary, then, should be a time of reverence and a time of joy. But today, some of those who feel the most reverence are also those who feel the least joy.

I understand why. We have not achieved the ideal of “a government of laws and not of men.” Our institutions have become bloated and sclerotic. We once again face a geopolitical rival with an authoritarian regime; collectivism was not defeated in the Cold War after all.

Some say that America is in a period of decadence, faltering and directionless. Some liken our condition to the last stage of the Roman Republic. Some say that this is the way of the world—empires rise and they fall.

But the American spirit is the opposite of such fatalism. I cannot, will not, resign myself to American stagnation, sclerosis, and decline.

As great as the Declaration was, the greatness of America is not only that we declared and won our independence. It is also in all the achievements since. That we unified the colonies into a strong federal system, under a brilliant Constitution. That we made the Louisiana Purchase and expanded into the West. That we abolished slavery. That we invented the reaper, the light bulb, the telephone, the airplane, the assembly line, the television, the computer, the Internet. That we gave a home to so many immigrants, from so many places, that they called us a “melting pot.” That we built the transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal, the interstate highway system. That we gave women the vote. That we gave the world jazz and Hollywood. That we defeated the Nazis and faced down the Soviets. That we eliminated polio and led the eradication of smallpox.

Nor did the Declaration birth a perfect nation. We have always faced, and will always face, problems and threats both from without and from within. We have been plagued by corruption and scandal, rocked by banking crises, torn by civil war. We have known the fear of atomic warfare and of Sputniks orbiting overhead. Again and again, we have fought ourselves: over equal rights for all races and sexes, over whether to welcome foreigners or exclude them, over Prohibition.

When I look at the history of America, I don’t see a story of decline. I see a story of progress—however messy and hard-won. I see a long stumbling towards the light. That is the true way of the world.

And I see the spirit of America still strong among those who have not forgotten. Those who are building rockets and supersonic jets and nuclear power plants; those who are curing cancer and obesity and aging; those who are still tirelessly defending the rule of law, separation of powers, and freedom of speech. And I see Americans, sometimes in the crudest possible way, groping towards rediscovering our national self-esteem.

In America’s darkest hour, less than a century after its birth, Lincoln asked his countrymen to rededicate themselves to cause of liberty, and to the great unfinished work in front of them. He called on them to resolve that the nation would see a rebirth of freedom. Now, after a quarter-millennium, it is time for us to do that once more.

May the next 250 years do justice to the progress of the last 250.