As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should do more than celebrate with fireworks, flags, parades, and patriotic songs. We should pause to remember what made America possible—and what made America exceptional.

In 1776, America was not a superpower. It was not wealthy, dominant, or secure. It was a fragile collection of 13 colonies along the edge of a vast continent, facing the greatest military empire on earth. By every ordinary measure of power, the American cause should have failed.

But America was born from an extraordinary idea.

The Declaration of Independence announced to the world that human rights do not come from kings, parliaments, presidents, courts, or bureaucracies. They come from God. Governments do not create those rights; they are instituted to secure them. That was a revolutionary proposition in 1776, and it remains revolutionary today.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Those words changed the course of human history.

America did not become the greatest nation on earth because of geography alone, or natural resources alone, or military strength alone. Other nations have had abundant land, rich resources, and large populations. America rose because it was built upon principles that unleashed human potential: individual liberty, equality before God and the law, private property, free enterprise, religious freedom, freedom of speech, the rule of law, and constitutionally limited government.

Those principles transformed 13 vulnerable colonies into the world’s economic, military, technological, innovative, and cultural superpower.

The Constitution gave those principles structure. It created a republic of divided powers, checks and balances, federalism, and limited authority. The Founders understood something too many modern politicians forget: government is necessary, but government is also dangerous when its powers are not restrained.

That is why our Constitution does not simply empower........

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