Carl’s Conservative Corner

Credit goes to the Centennial Institue for this article.

America has lost sight of the true meaning of Independence Day. While the day has become synonymous with fireworks and hot dogs, we have forgotten that it embodies a much deeper truth which sets America apart: The “Spirit of 1776.” 

This spirit is the animating force of American self-government—the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence that have inspired generations to pursue liberty, justice, and equality. At the heart of that spirit are three foundational truths: all human beings are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights and the proper role of government is to secure—not grant—these rights. These ideas are the wellspring of American constitutionalism and citizenship. They also place a profound responsibility on each generation to preserve and pass on the moral and civic inheritance of 1776. 

When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he was not inventing a new set of truths but rather giving voice to what he called in a letter to Henry Lee “the American mind.” The idea that human beings possess equal dignity simply by virtue of their humanity was a revolutionary affirmation against the hierarchies of aristocracy and tyranny. These rights—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—do not come from kings or congresses. They come from God. As such, they cannot be revoked by political will. The purpose of government, then, is not to create rights for the people but to protect rights that the people already possess. When a government becomes destructive to these ends, it loses its legitimacy. 

More than any other American president, Abraham Lincoln sought to recover, clarify and recommit the nation to the ideals of 1776. In his 1838 Lyceum Address, Lincoln warned that the greatest threat to American liberty would not come from a foreign invader but from the corrosion of its own civic virtue. The memory of the Revolution would fade, and new generations, unconnected by blood to that founding moment, would be tempted to abandon its principles. The antidote, Lincoln believed, was a “political religion” of the nation—a reverence for the Constitution and the laws, animated by a devotion to the Declaration’s principles of natural rights and equality. 

Such devotion, Lincoln insisted, must be cultivated. In an 1858 speech in Chicago, often called the “Electric Cord” speech, Lincoln returned to this theme. He acknowledged that Americans living decades after the Revolution might feel disconnected from the Founding Fathers, not by ancestry, but by time. Yet, he argued, the truths of the Declaration provide a common creed that binds us together across generations. “They [the principles of the Declaration] are the electric cord…that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together…as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of the people.” In other words, our national unity does not depend on shared bloodlines but on a shared belief in the moral and political truths of 1776. 

This shared belief is not self-sustaining. It requires institutions—schools, families, churches and civic associations—to preserve and transmit it. The Declaration’s principles cannot live in abstraction; they must be taught, rehearsed, and embodied. Schools must teach both the events of the American founding and the ideas that shaped them. Families must model the dignity of each person and the responsibilities of free citizenship. Churches must remind us of the moral order that undergirds liberty—that rights are given by God and entail duties to others. Civic groups and local communities must foster a sense of ownership in the American project. Without these mediating institutions, the spirit of 1776 becomes an apparition—revered but no longer real. 

Indeed, to preserve our republic, we must insist on fidelity to the principles of 1776—not merely as historical artifacts but as enduring truths. When we forget that rights are God-given, we open the door to a government that assumes too much power and grants rights as privileges to be regulated or revoked. When we forget the equality of all people, we fall prey to the old injustices of race, class and tyranny. When we forget that government exists to secure rights—not to provide happiness, but to protect the pursuit of it—we risk trading liberty for temporary comfort and losing both. 

Lincoln saw this danger in his own day. He urged his fellow citizens to see themselves as stewards of a great inheritance and not merely as recipients of past achievements. He understood that the task of each generation is to rededicate itself to the spirit of 1776—not through ritual alone, but through a deliberate and reasoned commitment to its ideals. 

As we reflect on our place in the American experiment, we must ask whether we are cultivating that same spirit in our homes, our classrooms and our communities. Are we teaching our children that freedom is not free, that equality is not sameness, and that rights come with responsibilities? Are we training future citizens to honor the sacrifices of the past by building a society worthy of them? 

The spirit of 1776 calls us to something higher than partisan politics or cultural resentment. It calls us to remember who we are as a people: a nation founded on the proposition that all are created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. That spirit still lives—but only if we choose to live by it. 

Wishing you a blessed Independence Day,

Greg Schaller
Director, Centennial Institute

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