This is an opinion column

On this Fourth of July, we celebrate America’s founding as an uncertain sound rises up in our nation. We’re concerned that the ties which bind us as countrymen may not be strong enough to overcome the forces which divide. We wonder to ourselves whether our best days are behind us. The headlines are replete with declarations that democracy itself may have perished.

Instead of apologizing for America, we must remind ourselves of our core values.

After the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia a raucous celebration broke out across the land. Many of the former colonists began to call themselves Americans. According to Daniel Webster, those first patriots were “all on fire with a sense of oppression, and a resolution to throw it off.”

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Liberty is our shared American heritage.

President John F. Kennedy articulated the idea with great clarity. “Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution.”

America’s promise rises with liberty and perishes in its absence.

The Constitution, our nation’s highest law, affirms rights held by all which no government and no political majority, however powerful, can deny.

We cannot lightly gloss over the fact that America has frequently failed to live up to those ideals. Ink on parchment is no substitute for the honorable and just conduct of men and women across a nation.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the progres we have made. The bonds of slavery have been broken. Voting is not limited by race, gender, or creed. Just a few weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled tha America must continue to address election law disparities under the Voting Rights Act to safeguard the legitimacy of our Republic.

Very few of us trace our blood ancestry back to America’s infancy. If the validity of our nation’s founding hinges on the demographic representation at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, we are in dire straits. Only 39 men signed the Constitution.

Thankfully God’s divine providence enabled the assembled few to create a government of the people, for the people, and by the people which has, thus far, not perished from the Earth. We do not hold together as Americans because of men we read about in history books; our nation endures because we continue to declare the same truths that drove us to independence.

All men are created equal.

We are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights.

Our government exists to secure the preexisting rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Just government derives its power from the consent of the governed.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to a new nation. At the time, they recognized each of them had either signed their own death warrant or created a new nation anchored in liberty itself.

“We must all hang together,” Benjamin Franklin quipped, “or, assuredly, we will all hang separately.”

That sentiment is as powerful for Americans today as it was hundreds of years ago. We must defend liberty even where we disagree with its exercise. Our common interest, and perhaps the only one, is freedom itself.

Too many of us have become so enamored with our own righteous perspectives that we are willing to compromise on liberty. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; the descent to tyranny is similarly constructed.

As we celebrate our independence, it is far more than a mere historical event. We’re not celebrating ancient ideals, but rather the fire of liberty which still burns hot. Those flames are only tempered by our shared bonds as Americans living in civil society which continues to serve as a beacon of hope around the world.

Our proud history, our shared dreams, our love of liberty — these are stronger than any differences that may divide us. Whether we are Muslim or Christian, we are one nation under God. Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we are one nation indivisible. Whether we are Black or white, we are one nation dedicated to liberty and justice for all. We’re continuously engaged in the perfection of our union.

To that end, we must again pledge ourselves to the cause of liberty with no less vigor than those who preserved and expanded it for us.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with a house full of boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in a media company, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.