By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

On this Fourth of July, the United States turns 250. A quarter of a millennium is long enough to make a nation feel permanent, as though it had always been here and always will be. But the founders who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence knew that they were making a wager, not a guarantee. They pledged their lives, fortunes and honor precisely because the outcome was in doubt. Two and a half centuries later, the wager is still being placed by every generation that inherits it. That is the truth worth celebrating this summer — America is still........

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