The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence found Americans, as usual, arguing about who the real Americans are and what it takes to be one. In the run-up to the celebration, your Global View columnist participated in two events where American identity was at the center of the discussion. One was a conversation with Prof. Robert P. George at an event sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. The other was a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival with Monticello’s president, Jane Kamensky, and David French of the New York Times, moderated by NPR’s Jenn White.
At both events I found myself politely pushing back against assertions that America is best understood as a “creedal nation” and that the Declaration is the definitive statement of the American creed. The Declaration is a weighty and world-altering document, but America is more complicated than a set of ideas.