The American Founding launched a revolutionary idea: rights exist first, and government exists to secure them. It’s beautiful, transformative… and perpetually unfinished.

Tempting as it may be, I have no business assigning homework to readers of The Daily Economy. Perhaps, however, I can inspire with enthusiasm.

Every year on the Fourth of July, while others are already enjoying grilled meat and fireworks, I reread the Declaration of Independence. This year’s reading, on the Declaration’s 250th anniversary, will be particularly special. I love the simple and elegant bridge that Thomas Jefferson constructed between abstract political philosophy and applied constitutionalism.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” There is the philosophy, a pithy distillate of the Enlightenment. Applied politics follows: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The rest is magnificent. But it is secondary.

Alas, it’s become too fashionable to bash the American Founding, and jettison its myriad achievements because it wasn’t perfect, and its bounty did not extend immediately to all.

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