The Declaration of Independence isn’t a Hallmark card. Honor its challenge | Opinion

Kansas City is home to Hallmark, whose cards help people celebrate, comfort and congratulate one another. The Declaration of Independence was written for a different purpose. It was written not to comfort Americans or congratulate them on their achievements, but to challenge them to create a nation worthy of the founding principles it proclaimed.

Yet the White House’s official narrative for the ongoing celebration of the Declaration’s 250th anniversary pursues purposes very different from those of the Declaration.

The narrative states that the White House Task Force 250 seeks to “inspire a renewed love for American history,” “encourage citizens to experience the (nation’s) beauty,” rekindle “a spirit of adventure and innovation,” and invite Americans to “rededicate ourselves as one nation under God.” Then it proclaims that “the story of America makes everyone free.”

Task Force 250 is also organizing a year of theatrical festivities. Among them are the July 4 Salute to America 250 Celebration & Fireworks, described by the White House as featuring “one of the grandest displays of patriotism that the world has ever seen,” including “the largest pyrotechnics display in the history of the world.” It also includes Rededicate 250, a prayer event that the Wall Street Journal described as reflecting the “administration’s broader effort to elevate Christianity in government and civic life,” and UFC Freedom 250, a mixed martial arts cage match held last weekend on the White House South Lawn.

Yet while celebrating patriotism, providence, prayer and national greatness, the Task Force 250 narrative says little about the Declaration of Independence itself and the principles on which it rests. Those principles tell a story about America different from the one Task Force 250 presents.

The Declaration was not written as a comforting, congratulatory greeting card. It catalogued the “long train of abuses and usurpations” by George III, denounced his “tyranny” and called for rebellion against his rule.

One principle on which the Declaration rests is popular self-government: Governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The Declaration advances that principle through an indictment of monarchical power.

A second principle is that, while it is the “right of the people to alter or abolish” a tyrannical government, they also bear responsibility for “institut(ing) new government” designed to secure the people’s “unalienable rights.” The signers therefore did not merely declare independence — they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the more difficult task of creating a government grounded in consent, liberty and the rule of law.

A third principle is equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This principle was plainly inconsistent with slavery and was betrayed during the long era of Jim Crow. Yet it became the moral and constitutional foundation for abolition, women’s suffrage, civil rights and other movements seeking a nation closer to its stated ideals.

The story of America that the Declaration tells is therefore not one in which freedom was automatically bestowed by the nation’s history or in which “everyone” was “made free.” It is one in which generations of Americans struggled, often bitterly, to make the country live up to principles it repeatedly failed to honor. That struggle continues.

A celebration worthy of the Declaration of Independence would honor the nation’s achievements, including through traditions such as fireworks. But it would not chiefly foreground narratives of national self-congratulation, extravagant patriotic spectacle or entertainment such as cage fighting on the South Lawn. Rather, it would recognize that the Declaration was written to challenge Americans to create a nation worthy of its founding principles. That challenge remains unmet. The American story — the American democratic experiment that the Declaration set in motion — remains unfinished.

Robert E. Lehrer is a retired Chicago lawyer whose practice focused on plaintiffs’ civil rights litigation.