America250 is approaching fast. Can you feel it—that pulse of pride beating louder throughout our nation? Are you ready?

This July 4, as you stand beneath the sky, oohing and aahing at the bombs bursting in the air above, you also stand on the cusp of a patriotic milestone. It’s one that you share with every other true American. It’s a strength that has carried our nation for nearly 250 years. All of us have it. Or should. Do you?

Remember your childhood years when you first experienced the anticipation, excitement, and ultimate joy of Independence Day? Sure, the food was great. The weather was (usually) great. But there was something greater gnawing at your soul. What made everyone so happy? Where did this universal spirit come from? How and when, you wondered, will your parents, teachers, or anyone else finally reveal this secret to you?

As you held the twinkling sparkler in your soft, young hands, you didn’t know the Founding Fathers lit a spark in 1776 that burns as brightly today as it did then.

It’s not about battles. It’s not about speeches. It’s about us. Fireworks are fun, but they don’t reveal the heart of America’s strength. It’s a flame deep inside, kindled long ago, that remains blazing within us all.

If only we are allowed to feel it, dream it, and live it.

America250 Celebrates the Founders’ Flame in Every Heart

It’s likely been a while since you opened your old elementary school textbooks, if you still have them. They might be old and musty, but the lessons within them shine as brightly as the new dawn. Indeed, they reveal that first light that birthed our nation.

Others (mostly those thoughtful thinkers who hung out at 18th-century European salons) would call it by various names. First, they snubbed “The American Experiment.” Then they contemplated “The American Ideal.” Finally, they conceded to “American Exceptionalism.”

In case you missed it, they were talking about you.

Sure, you weren’t around back then. Heck, there’s a good chance, like me, your family was still living in one of those snotty (yet poor) European countries. But you’re here now, so you’re part of a bigger family. You share a legacy that begins on a hot summer day in July 1776.

Imagine yourself sitting in the uncomfortably humid Philadelphia State House. The flickering candlelight glows softly in the dark hall. The voices within, however, are anything but soft. The air hums with defiance.

Steaming with tension, the delegates understand the risks they are about to take. Just being there puts their very lives in danger. So powerful, so merciless is the British Crown that Ben Franklin sums up the proceedings with his famous quip, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Still, these brave men argue and debate. Their tone oscillates between heated roars and speculative murmurs. Nonetheless, the quills scratched away until the Declaration of Independence took its final form: We hold these truths to be self-evident…

Here’s the thing about the Declaration of Independence and why we continue to cherish it nearly a quarter of a millennium since Thomas Jefferson applied that final ink to parchment. It never represented a war plan. The Founding Fathers didn’t intend it for that purpose. Instead, they saw it as a vision of self-governance.

The Declaration, though it emerged from a cauldron of intense pressure, wasn’t about fighting. It wasn’t about all those eloquent words, either. No, it memorialized a bold ideal, something never before expressed with such vigor.

Most importantly, the flame it lit wasn’t just for a single rebellion at that moment in time. Its fire has glowed in the hearts of all in a way that transcends time.

America250: True Power Comes from Ideals, Not Actions

After centuries of ‘modern,’ bloody revolutions, especially in the post-Marxist world, the American Revolution seems hardly revolutionary. And yet, it was. Perhaps a more radical revolution than we think. And one that has allowed us to reach heights never imagined by anyone living before 1776.

Why? But to truly understand why this Revolution remains so extraordinary, we turn to one of the nation’s leading historians. Gordon Wood, Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution. He explains clearly what makes the American Revolution stand out and what makes it resonate with us today.

First, unlike what popular literature cites as the primary reason for revolution (and what you might remember about the root cause of the French Revolution), the American Revolution did not arise because of class disparity. Wood writes, “the social conditions that generally are supposed to lie behind all revolutions—poverty and economic deprivation—were not present in colonial America. …in destroying monarchy and establishing republics [the Founding Fathers] were changing their society as well as their governments, and they knew it.”

On its face, except for not having a king, the structure of the new American government contained many elements of the old colonial governments. Sure, there were popular elections, but the titles and duties were very similar. But something was different. And it was big. Wood observes, “One class did not overthrow another; the poor did not supplant the rich. But social relationships—the way people connected one to another—were changed, and decisively so. By the early years of the nineteenth century the Revolution had created a society fundamentally different from the colonial society of the eighteenth century. It was in fact a new society unlike any that had ever existed anywhere in the world.”

Okay. Sounds impressive, right? But Wood wants to remind you of the context under which this occurred. “[T]his astonishing transformation took place without industrialization, without urbanization, without railroads, without the aid of any of the great forces we usually involve to explain ‘modernization.’ It was that Revolution that was crucial to this transformation. It was the Revolution, more than any other single event, that made America into the most liberal, democratic, and modern nation in the world.”

There are some today who prefer to see only the imperfections of America. It’s as if they demand a god-like perfection from mankind. There was a time when these thoughts would have been heretical. Thanks to the consequences of the American Revolution, we can freely think these thoughts. It doesn’t mean they’re right. It just means we have the right to express them.

Wood, however, reminds us, “To focus, as we are today apt to do, on what the Revolution did not accomplish—highlighting and lamenting its failure to abolish slavery and change fundamentally the lot of women—is to miss the great significance of what it did accomplish; indeed, the Revolution made possible the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements of the nineteenth century and in fact all our current egalitarian thinking.”

Renewing Our Strength for the Next 250 Years

Funny how actions fade, but ideals last forever. That’s the sign of an enduring event. Sooner or later, we forget the significance of any action, whether it represents failure or heroism. Once sparked, ideals ignite generation after generation. We can look past any action, but our loyalty to the ideals of truth, justice, and the American Way strengthens with every passing year. Where actions stumble, ideals stand tall.

Wood says, “[The American Revolution] was one of the greatest revolutions the world has known, a momentous upheaval that not only fundamentally altered the character of American society but decisively affected the course of subsequent history.”

He concludes, “The Revolution did not merely create a political and legal environment conducive to economic expansion; it also released powerful popular entrepreneurial and commercial energies that few realized existed and transformed the economic landscape of the country. In short, the Revolution was the most radical and most far-reaching event in American history.”

And that history is there, inside you. The heart that beat for liberty in 1776 still beats within you today. Let it beat strong. Let it beat free. Let it carry America forward.

This is the story Gordon Wood tells brilliantly. Read his book The Radicalism of the American Revolution.