By Attorney General Raúl Labrador
I had the chance to visit Boston for the first time last week and walk the Freedom Trail through one of the most historic cities in our country. I stood at the Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence received one of its earliest public readings on July 18, 1776, just weeks after it was adopted in Philadelphia. Standing on that spot, I thought about how differently that document is treated today than it was by the people who first heard it read aloud.
If you want to hear those words spoken aloud the way the crowd outside the Old State House first heard them, the JFK Presidential Library has a recording of a young Senator John F. Kennedy reading the Declaration in full for a July 4th radio broadcast in 1957. It’s a good listen with your family this weekend, and you can find it here.
This Fourth of July marks 250 years since the Declaration was adopted, and America’s founding principles are under direct attack from institutions that were supposed to protect them. Universities teach students that the founding was a fraud built on oppression rather than the greatest experiment in self-government in human history. Corporate and media elites treat American patriotism as something embarrassing to be managed rather than something to be proud of. Federal agencies operate as if the Constitution’s limits on their power are optional. Together these amount to an attack on the American inheritance itself, on our history, our values, our culture, and the way of life generations of Americans built and defended.
A republic survives only as long as its people still believe in it and are willing to defend it. American culture, forged through faith, family, hard work, and a shared commitment to liberty, gave rise to the Constitution and has kept it alive for 250 years. When elite institutions teach children to see their own country as a source of shame rather than pride, they cut the next generation off from the inheritance they need to keep the republic going.
As Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was asked whether the delegates had created a republic or a monarchy. His reply has outlasted every one of them: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping it requires more than institutions and laws. It requires a people who still love this country enough to defend what makes it worth keeping.
President Ronald Reagan reminded Americans that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” He understood that liberty is not inherited automatically. Every generation must learn why our Constitution matters, why limited government protects freedom, and why the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence are worth preserving. A generation that never learns to appreciate the miracle of ordered liberty cannot be expected to defend it. If America is to remain free for another 250 years, we must do more than celebrate our history. We must teach it, preserve it, and pass it on with confidence.
Happy Fourth of July, Idaho. It remains the honor of my life to serve as your Attorney General and to stand with all Americans who have kept faith with this Republic for the last two and a half centuries.
We have kept it for 250 years. May we prove worthy to keep it for 250 more.
About Raúl Labrador
Raúl Labrador is the 33rd Attorney General of Idaho. The Office of the Attorney General provides legal representation for the State of Idaho. This representation is furnished to state agencies, offices and boards in the furtherance of the state's legal interests. The office is part of state government’s executive branch and its duties are laid out in the Idaho Constitution.
