How should we think of Independence Day?

Twelve score and seven years ago, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” in the words of Abraham Lincoln. On this Independence Day, American institutions and ideals are being put to the test in ways we have not seen in many years.

Some loud voices suggest that our country was established to secure the institution of slavery on this continent. In this reckoning, the real founding of the United States ought to be marked at the year 1619, when the first Africans were sold into servitude on the mainland of North America, specifically in the newly founded colony of Virginia. Since then, according to this perspective, America has had race prejudice and white supremacy at the very core of its identity, and racism is essential to the American project writ large. Such a historical reckoning is smudged with cynicism. Racism most certainly has been prominent in American history, but racism is not essential to the American experiment in self-government. The lives and careers of such men and women as Condoleeza Rice, Jason Riley, Robert Woodson, Clarence Thomas, and Rosa Parks bear witness to this truth.

Others suggest that our country’s experiment in self-government has been an abject failure. They (correctly) lament the rise of anti-Christian secularism, transgenderism, identity politics, the welfare state, globalism, and abortion on demand, pointing to these and other problems as evidence that the classical liberal foundation on which the republic was built is directly responsible for such tragedies. What is needed is a retrieval of an America that has been lost, the America of the colonial or early republican period when the country was not tormented by such demons. This attitude is marked by nostalgia—not an imaginative nostalgia, which can be beneficial to a society—but nostalgia as a test for truth. It is a nostalgia not unlike that of King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia (1748–1849), the reactionary who went around muttering “ottantotto, ottantotto,” Italian for “88,” longing for a return to the world just before the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789.

Both perspectives—cynicism and nostalgia—undermine patriotism. In cherry-picking from the historical record, people who espouse one or the other of these perspectives reject the America of reality and wish for an America that does not exist. Cynics and those committed to nostalgia are both utopian, in that they seek to replace the America of reality with a pure and undefiled America of their imagination. They are not patriots, but vain and caustic dreamers. The patriot will resist the temptation of cynicism and nostalgia.

The question, “what is patriotism?” can be answered simply. Patriotism is gratitude. It is gratitude for freedom under a just order based on a balance between rights and duties, gratitude for the people who have sacrificed their lives and comfort that our freedoms might be maintained, gratitude for home, friendships, relations, and other associations without which freedom would be impossible. It is gratitude for the bounty of material goods that enrich our lives, gratitude for the ability to read books, to travel freely, to make new associations—with the dead through their past contributions, with the living and their present capacity to bless, and with the yet-to-be-born in anticipation of what goods they will bring to our families, our societies, and our nation. Patriotism is marked by gratitude for all the things that make life worth living. Our nation, the United States of America, though imperfect, is the best nation in the whole world. It is the best because it is home. And it is uniquely committed to a vision of constitutional self-government.

Gratitude for the nation—its past, its present, and its future—does not exclude criticism. It does not involve our burying our heads in the sand with a denial of sin, injustice, or frightfulness. All humans are stained with the same sinful proclivities, and Americans are emphatically no exception to this rule. But the gratitude of the patriot brings injustices and sins into stark relief, rousing him to stand against the injustices of the present and the potential for injustice in the future. True gratitude is based in the virtue of charity for all, and charity always desires the good for every individual and family. The blessing of America to humankind is rooted in the Christian conviction that every person is created in the image of God and thus possesses incalculable worth and dignity.

This Independence Day, be a patriot. Focus on the good that Americans have stood, sacrificed, and even died for and then build on that foundation. Do not shirk, cower, or be embarrassed by the great men and women of the past, even though they were not always true to the ideals they professed. Instead, rise up, stand on their shoulders, advance the promise of American ideals, understanding that you too will sometimes fail and struggle against your own sinful nature. Give thanks to God for life, the opportunity to live in such a time as this, and show your gratitude to Him for the truly great country He has given you. We Americans have so much to live for, so much to be thankful for, and so much to hand down to our children and to our children’s children. So tell them why we celebrate Independence Day.