Six Gifts for the Republic
As America approaches its 250th birthday, the nation faces more than an anniversary; it faces a choice. We can settle for a celebration of the past marked by flags, fireworks, and nostalgia, or we can treat this moment as a summons to renewal.
Despite the headwinds of polarization and public distrust, citizens across the country are strengthening democracy from the ground up. The better tribute to the American experiment would be not merely to honor our history, but to offer six meaningful gifts to the republic’s future. And with Congress having formed the largest bipartisan caucus in modern history to mark the 250th, the country should ask something worthy of it.
The first gift for America should be universal civic understanding.
Democracy asks much of a people. Liberty cannot endure where civic ignorance prevails. A free society depends upon citizens capable of self-government — citizens who understand the Constitution not as an artifact, but as an inheritance and responsibility – and a recognition that our system gives Americans agency to make a difference.
Every state constitution makes educating toward citizenship a priority. So, every school, college, and community in America should make a serious commitment to civic education. Courses in history, government and civics should not be electives of convenience, but essential preparation for citizenship across all majors and disciplines taught by well-trained teachers. Diplomas should recognize not only academic accomplishment, but civic participation and skills. Every community should engage the very young in a civics bee, making it as popular as the spelling bee. A republic confident in its future must first educate its citizens for freedom.
Significant progress has been made in recent years due to concerted efforts from the CivXNow coalition and philanthropy stepping up to help. Congress could play its part by passing the bipartisan Civics Secures Democracy Act for the 250th.
When a weary George Washington, after eight years of war, surrendered his commission rather than seize power, King George III reportedly said that if he did so, “he will be the greatest man in the world” — a reminder that civic virtue, not force, is what sustains a republic.
The second gift is a serious commitment to service.
Today, fewer than one percent wears the uniform or devotes a year to civilian national service. Too often, we have come to believe that service is someone else’s duty — the obligation of a distant few rather than the shared calling of a free people.
But citizenship is strengthened through sacrifice. Americans discover their country most fully when they contribute to something larger than themselves. And more Americans will stand up for the rule of law and their liberty if they have had to play some role in defending them.
The nation should create one million opportunities each year for civilian national service — in schools, hospitals, conservation projects, disaster relief, and community and faith-based institutions. Such service would not only meet urgent national needs; it would form citizens shaped by discipline, empathy, and common purpose. It would remind a divided people that democracy is not merely something we inherit. It is something we build together.
Governors Wes Moore, Spencer Cox, Gavin Newsom, and others are stepping up to create innovative new models for young people to perform a year of service in their states.
And we’ve done it before at the national level. During the Great Depression, 3 million young Americans in the Civilian Conservation Corps planted more than three billion trees and protected an acreage of land equivalent to our entire National Park footprint today. Many later said the camps did not simply restore forests — they restored their belief that they mattered to the country.
The passage in 2009 of the strongly bipartisan Serve America Act, co-led by Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican Orrin Hatch, reminds us we can do so in the modern age. Congress should finally fund this bipartisan law and unleash the resources of multiple departments and agencies – like the National Park Service, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs – to support the expansion of service corps to meet their public missions at lower cost to taxpayers.
The third gift is national healing not simply through respectful dialogue, but through challenging common endeavor.
America has become a nation too often separated into camps of resentment and suspicion, encouraged to believe that public life consists only of winners and losers. Yet the deepest achievements of democracy have never arisen from contempt. They have come from shared struggle in pursuit of common goals.
We should invest in local institutions and civic enterprises that bring Americans together across lines of politics, race, faith, class, and generations. Communities are repaired when people work beside one another — rebuilding neighborhoods, mentoring children, protecting public spaces, and solving practical problems together. Robert Putnam now shows us that such community-based enterprise can lead to an upswing in trust, cooperation, and equality.
The military has long demonstrated the power of a common mission to unite Americans of every background. Civil society can do the same. The country does not merely need less anger. It needs more solidarity. In shared foxholes, we form deep and enduring bonds.
When black and white veterans of World War II returned home after fighting side by side in Europe and the Pacific, many carried with them a new and unsettling realization: it was harder to defend segregation after risking one’s life together for the same flag.
Significant progress is being made to build trust and bridge divides through programs like the Trust for Civic Life, American Exchange Project, BridgeUSA, Listen First Project, Braver Angels, and Weave. Congress should pass the bipartisan Building Civic Bridges Act.
The fourth gift is confidence in democratic representation.
Public trust in elections and governing institutions has been weakened by reckless accusations, partisan manipulation, and the growing belief that political systems are designed to serve insiders rather than citizens. A gerrymandering arms race and efforts to restrict participation have deepened public cynicism and diminished confidence in representative government.
The principle at stake is simple: voters should choose their leaders; leaders should not choose their voters.
Congress and the states should prohibit mid-cycle redistricting, strengthen independent citizen commissions, and pursue electoral reforms that broaden representation and public confidence. The legitimacy of democracy depends not only on fair outcomes, but on fair rules openly trusted by the people themselves.
After voters in Michigan created an independent citizens’ redistricting commission, the outcomes of elections became much more aligned with actual voter preferences statewide. This should happen in other states.
The fifth gift is the renewal of local journalism.
A free press is not an accessory to democracy, but an essential guardian. Yet, across the country, thousands of local news organizations have disappeared in the past decades, leaving millions of Americans without reliable information about their own communities.
Where local journalism declines, corruption advances, civic participation weakens, and isolation grows. Communities lose not only information, but a shared sense of public life.
America should commit itself to rebuilding local news within the next decade through sustainable business models, philanthropic investment, and community support. Local journalism remains democracy’s early warning system — holding power accountable, informing citizens in times of crisis, and binding neighbors together through shared knowledge of the places they call home.
Thanks to efforts organized outside of government – namely Press Forward, American Journalism Project, Civic News Company, Rebuild Local News and private support for public media – in just a few years there are already 41 local news chapters across 38 states working to revitalize local news and more than $500 million in philanthropic investment.
To take just one example of the power of local news, The Flint Journal and Michigan Public Radio reported on the Flint water crisis and prompted dramatic change to protect children from lead exposure.
And finally, there is a sixth and indispensable gift often forgotten: leadership worthy of the republic.
No reform can substitute for character. Institutions alone cannot sustain a democracy when leaders place ambition above duty, faction above country, or power above principle. We have witnessed, too, a remarkable absence of courage to hold leaders accountable to rules and ideals.
We should expect more from those who seek public trust. Americans should honor leaders who speak truthfully, uphold the rule of law, respect constitutional limits, and appeal to the best within us rather than the worst. We should insist that integrity matters more than ideology, and that public office remains a moral responsibility rather than a stage for personal advancement. We should build on the lessons from Presidents and First Ladies from More Perfect’s In Pursuit and our Conversations on Character with General McChrystal across sectors and institutions.
When Abraham Lincoln visited Gettysburg, he did not speak of vengeance or triumph, but of “a new birth of freedom,” reminding a wounded nation that moral leadership calls a people upward rather than driving them apart. I wonder if leaders today would meet that same test.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, Americans celebrated a Declaration that ended by signers pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the proposition that free people could govern themselves. The signers knew they might lose their lives and fortunes, but honor was sacred because it could never be lost when they stood for what was right. We need to summon more of that courage today and insist upon it in our leaders.
As we approach our historic anniversary less than two months from now, the question is not whether America will celebrate, but whether America can make significant advances that deserve celebration.
The work of renewal cannot be postponed to another generation. The future of the republic will depend upon the courage of citizens willing to strengthen what they have inherited — and to leave it better for those who follow. The 250th gives us that rare chance.
John Bridgeland is the Founder & CEO of More Perfect, an American alliance of all 44 Presidential Centers, National Archives Foundation, and more than 100 partners working together to advance the foundational democracy goals referenced in this Substack.
One of the best things I've read on America's 250th yet. Thank you for the continued inspiration.
Great perspective and inspiration, John. If each of us choose just one of these “gifts” to endorse and actively participate in, the promise of another 250 years in this great experiment will be assured. Thanks!