I am proud to be an American.
Tomorrow we celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States of America. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming to England and the world that the American colonies were no longer part of the British Empire. Crafted by a small committee and penned by Thomas Jefferson, it is widely regarded as one of the most important documents in human history. It is the ideals expressed in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence that make me proud to be an American.
For the past 27 years, I have told every class I have taught that I consider myself an "American Exceptionalist." I truly believe we are an exceptional nation and people. America is unique because we have forged a national identity from people of different races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and languages. Over the last 250 years, Americans have come together around one shared ideal. That ideal is captured in a single sentence from the Declaration of Independence:
"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."
What makes America special is that these are not merely words we recite to make ourselves feel good while we pursue other, more ignoble ambitions but, rather, that we have never ceased to strive to live up to the lofty goals of that singular promise. Those words have served as our nation's guiding ideal, one that each generation has struggled to fulfill. Our progress has often been uneven, and we have repeatedly fallen short. Yet that, to me, is one of America's greatest strengths. America has an exceptional capacity to learn from its past and attempt to rectify its historical shortcomings.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote those words, he owned enslaved people. Indeed, an enslaved servant was present in the his room as he drafted the Declaration of Independence. America's experience with slavery remains one of the darkest, most execrable chapters in our history and the clearest example of our failure to live up to our founding promise. Yet 84 years after the Declaration was written, the nation became so divided over slavery that it fought a Civil War that ultimately ended the institution. In essence, Americans were willing to sacrifice their lives in an effort to bring the nation closer to its founding ideals. That, to me, is remarkable and inspiring.
Our treatment of American Indians is another tragic example of the nation failing to live up to its promise. For much of our early history, Native peoples were viewed as uncivilized or less than fully human. They were killed, displaced, enslaved, abused, and repeatedly betrayed by broken treaties. That history is reprehensible and shameful. Yet, over time, we have increasingly acknowledged those injustices and sought, however imperfectly, to address them. Once again, rather than simply ignoring a painful past, America has confronted its failures and attempted to do better.
Again and again, our nation has wrestled with its history and its failure to fully uphold its promise. Women were always citizens, but for much of our history their citizenship was more symbolic than meaningful. They possessed few political rights and limited economic and social rights. Through the courage and determination of generations of women—and many men—the nation was compelled to recognize yet another contradiction between its ideals and its reality. Once again, America chose to learn from its past and work toward a better future.
While I am proud to be an American, I have not always been proud of its government or its leaders. Every president since I became politically aware has, at times, disappointed, angered, or frustrated me. Yet that is one of America's greatest strengths—and one of the reasons I am proud to call it home. Here, you can freely express your discontent without fear of reprisal.
True patriotism means supporting your country while striving to make it better. It means holding the nation to its highest ideals and demanding that its leaders live up to them. When they fall short, citizens have not only the right but the responsibility to speak out and insist on better.
As Theodore Roosevelt famously said, "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly by the degree in which he himself stands by the country."
That is why I love this country. America's promise is so inspiring that it deserves our unwavering commitment—not blind loyalty to those in power, but steadfast dedication to the ideals that define the nation and the expectation that our leaders will strive to fulfill them.
Today, we stand at another crossroads in our nation's history. Do we truly believe that all people are created equal? Do all people possess certain unalienable rights? Does our government have a duty to protect those rights regardless of the color of a person's skin, their ethnicity, their religion, how they identify, or whom they love? As a nation, we must decide whether those rights belong to everyone or only to some.
I believe we will ultimately decide they belong to everyone. The process is slow, and the journey is often difficult and imperfect, but I believe we will continue moving toward a more perfect fulfillment of our founding promise. Americans are willing to confront their history—the glorious and inspiring alongside the painful and shameful. We learn from both. We strive, generation after generation, to become the nation envisioned in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.
That is why I am proud to be an American.
