US marks 250 years of independence amid economic strength and deep political unease

A radical founding, a flawed inheritance

On July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing ties with Britain and asserting that all men are created equal with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The document’s language has inspired democratic movements worldwide, yet from the outset it was contradicted by the reality of race-based chattel slavery. Samuel Johnson, writing in 1775, asked:

How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

That tension has never fully resolved.

The long arc of rights

Martin Luther King Jr., speaking at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, framed the Declaration as a promissory note on which America had defaulted for its citizens of colour.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

The Civil War, the 19th Amendment extending the vote to women, and the civil rights movement all expanded the republic’s promise, a pattern Bill Clinton later summarised:

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.

1. Jul 4, 1776Declaration of Independence adopted, asserting self-government and unalienable rights.
2. 1788US Constitution ratified, establishing the formal republic.
3. 1865Civil War ends; 13th Amendment abolishes slavery, expanding rights.
4. 192019th Amendment ratified, extending the franchise to women.
5. 1964Civil Rights Act passed, a landmark of the civil rights movement.

Economic might and hollowed-out middle

By most conventional measures the US economy is thriving, yet a sense of malaise grips the country. The middle class has been hollowed out and social mobility has stalled, feeding a politics more polarised than at any point in living memory. A new gilded age of concentrated wealth presses against democratic institutions: a hyper-politicised judiciary, a Congress unable to legislate, an executive inclined to rule by fiat, and a centuries-old constitution nearly impossible to modernise. The packed stadiums at the ongoing World Cup project an image of celebration and prosperity, but the pervasive “skyboxification” of public life, a term coined by philosopher Michael Sandel, means the rich can increasingly avoid sharing spaces with everyone else.

Global power, uncertain direction

The US rose over the last century to become the world’s pre-eminent nation in economic, military, scientific and cultural terms. Americans have won more Nobel prizes than any other country, and the whole world consumes its films and music. Yet serious foreign policy mistakes since the Second World War and the erratic persona of the current president have left allies and rivals uneasy. The republic that was founded by men wary of foreign entanglement has spent 80 years as the organising power of the international order, its habits reshaping societies far beyond its borders.

A capacity for renewal

America’s founders looked to the Roman republic as both inspiration and cautionary warning. The Financial Times notes that the US economy’s innovative drive remains undimmed: the country that gave the world self-government also ushered in the digital revolution. Because the nation is based on an idea rather than ancestral ties, its revolution triggered a quest that can never be exhausted. The price of liberty, as a saying from the founding era goes, is eternal vigilance.