Three Reasons to Celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary
Editor's Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Regent University, its faculty, administration, or affiliates.
One of the courses I’m privileged to teach in Regent’s Honors College is titled “The Exceptional Country.” The students interact with such great texts as the Federalist Papers, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and, of course, the Declaration of Independence.
In reflecting on these and other related works, three things stand out as I contemplate our 250th anniversary as a nation. Of course, there are others, but here are three that strike me as especially worthy of consideration.
Our Founding Principles
Our country was founded on a set of beliefs. In one of the most remarkable passages in any political document in history, the second paragraph of the Declaration makes the following arguments:
- There is a Creator
- Every person has equal worth in His sight – we are all “created equal”
- The Creator is the source of our rights
- Among those rights are life, liberty, and “the pursuit of happiness,” a phrase which, when understood in context, captures both the right to own property and the necessity of personal virtue
- Governments exist by the consent of those governed and have been instituted to “secure” our God-given rights
- When a government “becomes destructive of these ends,” the people have a moral right to “alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
Today, we often take these things for granted. Indeed, many Americans simply reject the idea that our rights come from God. The Founders did not. They established a theological grounding for our republic, which to ignore or denigrate is an assault on the very basis of our nation.
The assertions of the Declaration were and remain unique in the long history of man’s efforts to provide ordered liberty for himself and his posterity. They are part of what makes America exceptional.
Our Capacity for Self-Correction
We cannot ignore the tragic history of human enslavement and the decades-long battle for civil rights for all Americans, including African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. An honest evaluation of the American story demands that we confront the injustices done to persons of color over the centuries of our life together on this continent.
In his eloquent 1852 speech, “What, to a Slave, is the Fourth of July?”, the great orator and statesman Frederick Douglass asked, “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to (African Americans)?” He answered his own question: speaking to his white audience, he said, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice; I must mourn.”
Yet Douglass did not stop there. He concluded his speech “with hope … drawing encouragement from ‘the Declaration of Independence,’ the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.” History has vindicated his optimism. A civil war that cost an estimated 680,000 lives and the labor of generations of courageous men and women, most of them Black, to see the promise of the Declaration fulfilled, has led to a society in which racial and ethnic prejudice, while still present in some quarters, has become odious in the sight of the majority of our fellow citizens.
America’s ability to correct its failures and wrongs is extraordinary. It is another thing that makes our land exceptional.
Our Remarkable Freedoms
Freedom of religion. Of speech. Of assembly. Of the press. The right to “petition the government” without fear of reprisal. These are but some of the things we enjoy in America every day.
From our earliest days, the liberties we cherish have come at great cost. Writing of the Revolutionary Army’s march to their winter encampment at Valley Forge, soldier Joseph Plumb Martin, one of Washington’s soldiers, later reported that his colleagues were “not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute of all other clothing, especially blankets … they might be tracked by their blood upon the rough frozen ground.”
So it has been throughout our history: Brave men and women have sacrificed so that we can live in liberty, security, and prosperity. They still do, every day. As Ronald Reagan reminded us, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
Bravery is not unique to Americans, but the intertwining of courage and liberty, the pursuit of justice and the enjoyment of freedom, is part of what makes the United States exceptional.
In the next school year, when I again teach “The Exceptional Country,” I will do so with a renewed sense of gratitude that I can live in the country Abraham Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.” In doing so, I will not be doing anything exceptional – just something American.
