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The idea of America turns a quarter of a millennium old on Saturday. The formal republic came into being 12 years later with ratification of the constitution. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the 1776 Declaration of Independence is the force it still carries. The short document, which dissolved ties between the 13 colonies and the British crown, staked an urgent claim to enlightenment principles in the face of royal tyranny.
Yet it serves, too, as a timeless case for the principle of self-government. At its core is the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — the last a bold twist on John Locke’s right to property. Governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, said the founding framers, who held those truths to be “self-evident”. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, went a saying from that time. It as relevant today as it was then.
Because America is based on an idea, rather than ancestral ties, its revolution triggered a quest that can never be exhausted. Much is rightly made of the fact that many of the founders, notably America’s first and third presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves while proclaiming the equality of men. Yet, as Bill Clinton, the 42nd US president, pointed out, “there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America”. The US civil war expanded the republic’s rights to more of its people. The same applies to the 19th amendment extending the franchise to women and the US civil rights movement a generation later.
The US example helped inspire freedom movements around the world, including the Spanish American wars of the early 19th century that liberated much of the hemisphere from colonial rule. The same creed helped insulate the US from the lure of foreign ideologies, notably Marxism and fascism, and motivated its prosecution of the cold war. It is no coincidence that a nation founded on ideas became the world’s leading source of new ones, commercial and political. While the future direction of the republic is today in question, the US economy’s innovative drive is undimmed. The country that gave the world self-government ushered in the digital revolution.
A nation based on a creed is susceptible to self-doubt. America’s founders were flawed men. Yet, as students of antiquity, they were keenly aware of the short life expectancy of republics. They would surely have been delighted by Saturday’s semiquincentennial.
They would not have been shocked to learn, though, of demagoguery’s recurring siren song. Alexander Hamilton warned, “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.” Or as Benjamin Franklin said when asked what had just been created, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
That only a small majority of Americans today view President Donald Trump as a threat to their nation’s character was a danger foreseen by the founders. They mistrusted both society’s elites and its mob. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” said James Madison. Trump treats the separation of powers as an obstacle and the emoluments clause as dispensable advice. He who saves his country does not violate any law, he has said.
The US constitution has mechanisms to protect against tyranny. Yet the founders knew what we so easily forget: that power’s ultimate source comes from the people. Abraham Lincoln was the president who first linked the July 4 celebration to equality during the civil war. He speaks most directly to Americans today. A house divided cannot stand, Lincoln observed. “With public sentiment, nothing can fail,” he said. “Without it, nothing can succeed.”
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