America Needs A 250th Celebration Worthy Of Its History

The United States of America is now just twelve months removed from its Quarter-Millennial year. Many Americans of Generation X and older will fondly recall the spirited celebration of the American Revolution that swept the nation from April 1, 1975 through December 31, 1976. The upcoming milestone needs to emulate the Bicentennial by celebrating our founding and unifying our citizenry.

During the Bicentennial, colonial-themed parades and historical reenactments were everywhere. Tall ships from 30 nations paid homage to our nation’s birth by visiting New York harbor on July 4, 1976. The red, white, and blue American Freedom Train, propelled by a steam locomotive evoking America’s exploration of the West, visited towns in all 48 contiguous states. The train bore historic documents and artifacts including George Washington’s draft of the Constitution, John Kennedy’s hand-written draft of his inaugural address, the first American Bible, rocks from the moon, and Paul Revere’s saddlebags.

CBS, ABC, and “Sesame Street” ran Bicentennial-themed, historical, and civic-education programs. There was renewed interest in American history at the state and local level, and increased scholarly research on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. The Bicentennial was a unifying show of gratitude for the first 200 years of a nation that Alexander Hamilton called “in many respects the most interesting in the world.”

America badly needed that celebration at that time. In 1976, the country was coming off of a decade featuring high crime, riots, racial tensions, Watergate, and Vietnam. A half-century later, America is coming off of a decade featuring high crime, riots, racial tensions, Covid mandates, and a disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. What was true then is true now: America needs to reconnect to the “spirit of ’76” with gratitude and reverence for the founding of our nation.

In terms of classical statesmanship, the American founders represent perhaps the greatest leadership class in human history. Other political leaders may have successfully defended their way of life, but our founders (as they promised in the Federalist Papers) created a new type of regime, a novus ordo seclorum, or a new order for the ages — a constitutional republic that has provided as much or more opportunity, prosperity, and, ultimately, freedom as any other society, past or present. The Constitutional Convention was a singular gathering of greats. As Daniel Webster put it, “Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often.”

This, unfortunately, is not how the Left sees things. Progressives view America’s founding and most of its history as being at least as worthy of condemnation as of celebration. In the Left’s telling, America was flawed from the beginning, there’s little from the founding to celebrate, the Civil War, which claimed the lives of at least 600,000 mostly white farm boys, clerks, and tradesmen, didn’t repay the debt for the horrors of slavery that Abraham Lincoln suggested it did, and the 1960s civil rights movement didn’t go far enough.

The Left’s hyper-critical interpretation of American history has seeped into preliminary plans for the Quarter-Millennial. The America250 organization that is planning much of next year’s anniversary includes “diverse” and “inclusive” in its 50-word mission statement but couldn’t find the space for “American Revolution,” “American Founding,” “Declaration of Independence,” or anything else clearly hearkening back to 1776. In contrast, the Bicentennial’s official planning group was called the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, leaving no doubt what was being celebrated.

Washington state’s official America250 committee is emphasizing the darker aspects of our nation’s history. The committee chair, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck, complained that “there’s not even a hint of celebration” in the plans. State representative Kristine Reeves explained to him, “Not everybody is exactly excited about celebrating America.” She told Heck that Washington’s America250 committee wants the harms of our past put front and center.

Unlike Leftists, most Americans know that any human society is, and always will be, imperfect — and therefore in need of patriots to right injustices. And most Americans recognize that our inheritance is one of the greatest in world history — one that we should affirm rather than apologize for.

American civilization was built by pioneers, entrepreneurs, inventors, religious leaders, and social reformers, and it has been defended by soldiers who freed the slaves and saved the world from tyranny. Thus, the Quarter-Millennial should be a full-throated celebration of our history and heroes: of George Washington, Independence Hall, Yorktown, Lincoln, Appomattox Court House, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Wright brothers, Jim Thorpe, the Babe, Midway, Normandy, Jackie Robinson, Walt Disney, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Apollo landings, America’s triumph over communism, and much else.

As President Trump’s executive order creating the 1776 Commission put it, we should present our founding in a way that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” Celebrations should connect Americans to their extraordinary inheritance through events like Trump’s proposed year-long “Great American State Fair” and by reviving the steam-powered American Freedom Train.

Most importantly, our Quarter-Millennial celebration (“Semiquincentennial” is clunky and unmemorable; America’s 250th lacks the gravity of the Bicentennial) must unite us as Americans. It must remind our citizenry that the Declaration of Independence is a document of universal truths and that, in Lincoln’s words, all Americans “have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration.” In short, the Quarter-Millennial is the best opportunity in 50 years to reorient the citizenry toward the American Founding, and we shouldn’t squander it.

Fonte is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Sovereignty or Submission. Anderson is president of the American Main Street Initiative and served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2017-21.