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.