The American Experiment Belongs to ‘We the People’

Two hundred and fifty years ago, before campaigns had consultants, before politics became a cable-news cage match, before too many Americans started taking liberty for granted, a crowd gathered in Philadelphia.

They were not there to hear a king speak. They were not there to watch a government congratulate itself. They were there to hear a declaration: a public explanation of why a free people had the right, and the duty, to govern themselves.

On July 8, 1776, the citizens of Philadelphia were summoned by the bells of the city to the State House Yard. Four days earlier, the Second Continental Congress had approved the Declaration of Independence. Then Colonel John Nixon stood before the people and read those words aloud.

The Declaration was not treated as a document for elites. It was not hidden away in a committee room. It was read to the public, because the American experiment was never supposed to belong to politicians or bureaucrats. It belonged to the people.

The heart of that document is still radical today: our rights do not come from government. They come from God. Government does not grant liberty. Government exists to secure liberty, and when government forgets that, citizens have every right to hold it accountable.

That is the conservative heart of Independence Day.

America was not founded on blind faith in power, but on a healthy suspicion of concentrated power. The Founders understood something we need to remember in our own time: liberty is safest when government is limited, when citizens are engaged, when families, churches, neighborhoods, small businesses, and local communities are strong.

The Declaration was a demand for self-government, and we’d be sorely mistaken to forget that as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this historic document’s first public reading.

Too often, Washington behaves as if the American people are problems to be managed instead of citizens to be trusted. We see it when bureaucrats think they know better than parents. We recognize this when small businesses are buried under red tape. We certainly experience this when working families are squeezed by reckless spending, inflation, and taxes.

The men and women who heard the Declaration read aloud in 1776 did not walk away into an easy future. They walked into sacrifice, uncertainty, and responsibility. Freedom was not the end of their work, but instead the beginning.

This historic anniversary reminds us that America’s story is not finished. It is still being written by us—by ordinary Americans who decide to do one thing, take one step, speak one truth, serve one neighbor, defend one principle, and pass liberty to the next generation.

One small step might be reading the Declaration of Independence with your children or grandchildren. Perhaps it might be attending a town hall instead of yelling at the television.

It might be calling a lawmaker, knocking on a door, writing a letter, supporting a local small business, or standing up for the rule of law when it would be easier to stay silent.

It might be reminding a young person that America is not defined by its failures alone, but by its founding promise: that every human being has dignity, that liberty is worth defending, and that opportunity should not be reserved for the well-connected.

The first public reading of the Declaration was, in its own way, one small step. Colonel Nixon stood up and read the words, and the people listened. A nation began the long, difficult work of living up to its own creed.

Now, the bell rings for us. It rings whenever a citizen refuses to surrender responsibility to the state. It rings whenever parents demand a better education for their children. It rings whenever taxpayers insist that government live within its means.

Celebrate this historic moment in time by reading the Declaration. Take your one small step and defend freedom right here in the commonwealth.

Learn how you can help define our nation’s future by heading to TakeOneSmallStep.com.

This is Emily Brey, State Director with Americans for Prosperity-P