Two hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Jefferson sat in a room in Philadelphia and attempted to put words to something millions of people feel only a handful of times in history.
The feeling that the government no longer belongs to them.
The Declaration of Independence was not born from celebration.
It was born from alienation.
The colonists had petitioned. They had pleaded. They had argued. They had compromised. They had exhausted every avenue they believed available to them.
And eventually they arrived at a terrible conclusion.
The government that claimed authority over them no longer represented them.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of that declaration, I cannot help but wonder what Jefferson would write if he were handed a pen today.
I don’t believe he would write another declaration against England obviously
I think he would write a declaration against unchecked power itself.
Because somewhere along the way, millions of Americans have begun feeling something uncomfortably familiar.
The government feels like it belongs to someone else.
Not to farmers trying to save family land.
Not to teachers buying classroom supplies from their own pockets.
Not to nurses working double shifts.
Not to small business owners.
Not to working families trying to survive grocery bills, rent increases, and healthcare costs.
The government increasingly feels like it belongs to lobbyists, billionaires, consultants, corporations, donors, media personalities, and political operatives who have figured out how to profit from division while ordinary people fight each other for scraps.
The names have changed.
The accents have changed.
The flags have changed.
But the distance between the governed and those governing feels hauntingly familiar.
And perhaps that is the lesson of 1776 that we have forgotten.
The Declaration was never only about King George.
It was about power.
Jefferson’s complaint was not that the king was British.
His complaint was that power had become insulated from accountability.
That decisions were being made without meaningful consent from those forced to live with the consequences.
That government had ceased to be a servant and had begun behaving like a master.
Today we watch executive authority expand regardless of which party occupies the White House.
We watch Congress surrender responsibilities it was designed to protect.
We watch courts become political battlegrounds.
We watch wealth purchase access while ordinary citizens struggle to get a returned phone call from an elected official.
We watch constitutional restraints treated less as guardrails and more as inconveniences.
And through it all, Americans are told to pick a team rather than ask a question.
Who exactly is this government serving?
Because that has always been the question.
Not left or right.
Not Democrat or Republican.
Not red or blue.
Or power or people.
The genius of the Declaration was not that it demanded independence from England.
The genius was that it asserted a timeless principle.
No government owns the people.
The people own the government.
Every generation is required to reclaim that principle.
Not through violence or vengeance.
Not through blind loyalty to a political movement.
But through participation.
Through accountability.
Through demanding transparency.
Through insisting that public servants remember who they serve.
The greatest threat to democracy has never been disagreement.
The greatest threat has always been the concentration of power beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.
That was true in 1776.
It is true today.
And perhaps the most patriotic thing Americans could do on this 250th anniversary is not celebrate our independence from a king who died centuries ago.
Perhaps it is to renew our independence from the idea that anyone is entitled to power without accountability.
To remind ourselves that this country does not belong to presidents.
It does not belong to parties.
It does not belong to corporations.
It does not belong to donors.
It does not belong to the powerful.
It belongs to us.
A Government of the people.
By the people.
For the people.
Not as a clever phrase.
As a demand.
And that is what Jefferson would write today.
Not a declaration of war.
A declaration that the American people intend to reclaim ownership of their republic.
A declaration of the People’s Republic
When in the course of a nation’s life it becomes necessary for a free people to examine the state of the Republic entrusted to their care, respect for those who came before them requires that they speak plainly.
We hold still to the ancient truth that all people are born equal in both dignity and in worth.
That rights are not granted by governments, but secured by them.
That liberty is not the property of the powerful, but the birthright of the people.
That governments derive their just authority from the consent of the governed and remain accountable to those from whom that authority is borrowed.
These truths have not changed.
Neither time nor war nor prosperity nor technology has diminished them.
They are as true today as they were when first committed to paper and entrusted to the ages.
Yet every generation must answer the same question.
Does power still serve the people? Or have the people been asked to serve power?
For it is the tendency of all authority to seek its own expansion.
The tendency of wealth to seek influence.
The tendency of institutions to seek permanence.
The tendency of ambition to seek dominion.
Against these tendencies stands only the eternal vigilance of a free people.
We therefore declare that no office is greater than the Constitution.
That no party is greater than the Republic.
That no corporation is greater than the citizen.
That no accumulation of wealth, influence, title, or position confers greater ownership of this nation than belongs equally to every American.
For this Republic was not founded for the comfort of kings.
It was not established for the enrichment of the wealthy.
It was not preserved through sacrifice so that power might become the inheritance of the few.
It was founded, defended, and enlarged by ordinary people.
By farmers and laborers.
By teachers and tradesmen.
By immigrants and pioneers.
By soldiers who never returned home.
By citizens who marched, organized, voted, protested, built, sacrificed, and believed.
Their labor is the mortar between every stone of this Union.
Their courage is written into every chapter of its history.
And because of them, we reject the doctrine of helplessness.
We reject the notion that democracy belongs to elite alone.
We reject the belief that citizenship ends at the ballot box.
We reject the lie that corruption is inevitable.
We reject the fear that asks free people to surrender liberty in exchange for comfort.
We reject the cynicism that whispers that nothing can be changed.
For the American experiment was never an act of certainty.
It was an act of faith.
Faith that free people could govern themselves. All People. All Free
Faith that power could be restrained.
Faith that law could stand above ambition.
Faith that liberty and justice could be expanded from generation to generation.
That faith… remains our inheritance.
And it remains our responsibility.
Therefore let it be declared that the Republic belongs still to its people.
Not in theory.
Not in memory.
Not in sentiment.
But in fact.
Let every public servant remember whom they serve.
Let every institution remember from where its legitimacy is derived.
Let every citizen remember that self-government is not a gift received from the past, but a duty owed to the future.
And let us dedicate ourselves anew to the unfinished work of liberty.
To a nation where power remains accountable.
Where truth remains sacred.
Where justice remains blind.
Where rights remain universal.
Where democracy remains alive.
Let future generations say that when confronted with division, we chose the Union.
When confronted with fear, we chose courage.
When confronted with corruption, we chose integrity.
When confronted with concentrated power, we chose liberty.
And when called upon to defend the Republic, we remembered that America is not its politicians.
It is not its parties.
It is not its institutions.
America is its people.
And so long as the people remain free, vigilant, and determined, the flame first lit in Philadelphia shall not be extinguished.
The Republic will endure.
The Union will endure.
And that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall remain the sacred charge of every generation yet to come, and still… it shall not perish from this earth.
