Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary
The next 250 years will not write themselves. They will be written by citizens who still believe, as our founders did, that self-government is worth the trouble.
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation’s history that call us back to first principles, and this is one of them. Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago, 56 men gathered in Philadelphia and put their names behind a single, radical idea: that governments derive their just powers from God and the consent of the governed. It was not a safe thing to sign — nor was it a modest thing to declare. It was, and remains, the boldest experiment in self-governance humanity has ever attempted.
I have thought about that boldness often across my own years in public life. When I was nominated to the Speakership of the United States House of Representatives on Jan. 4, 1995, I opened the 104th Congress with a vision, founded on the conviction that our system of self-governance had to be upheld, defended, and renewed by every generation that inherits it. Our country was 208 years old, and it struck me then, as it strikes me now, that Congress and the American people had chosen dialogue over chaos for 104 consecutive terms. This is not an accident of history. It was a choice made repeatedly, by ordinary citizens who understood that freedom is worth the difficult, unglamorous work of preserving it.
In many ways, that was the foundation of the Contract with America: a common-sense commitment reminding elected officials that they work for the people, not the other way around. We wrote it down, we ran on it, and we kept our word. That is what self-governance looks like when it is taken seriously.
Now, a quarter-millennium after Thomas Jefferson’s pen first touched that hallowed paper in Philadelphia, we find ourselves at another hinge point. I will not pretend the challenges before us are small. However, I have never been a pessimist about America, and I am not one today. The same spirit that carried 56 signers past the fear of the gallows; carried a young republic through civil war, a depression, and world wars; and carried a fractious Congress through 119 terms of argument instead of violence — that spirit is not exhausted. It is, if anything, waiting to be called on again.
The next 250 years will not write themselves. They will be written by citizens who still believe, as our founders did, that self-government is worth the trouble. That is the spirit I want us to carry into this anniversary and not nostalgia for what America was, but confidence in what it can still become.
In that spirit, I have spent a great deal of time this year exploring how we got here and where the Declaration’s promise still points us. I’ve put together a special series on Newt’s World, digging into the history, the arguments, and the astonishing courage behind those 56 signatures. If you want to spend part of this Independence Day thinking seriously about what we’re celebrating, I hope you’ll give it a listen.
On behalf of myself and my wife, Callista, Happy Fourth of July. Here’s to the next 250 years of this historic Republic.
Your Friend,
Newt.
America’s 250 Birthday Celebration
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