1776—The Year the United States Was Born, and Its All-Important First Amendment Foundations Were Laid

Our Founders did not merely launch a nation; they secured the intellectual architecture of liberty itself.

"Declaration of Independence,"1819, by John Trumbell. Vernon Lewis Gallery/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images

Commentary

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the semiquincentennial, 1776 stands as the undisputed year of our nation’s birth. Yet 1776 was more than the year when America wrested independence from England; it was the year when the intellectual foundations of the First Amendment were first instantiated in the revolutionary state documents of Virginia and Pennsylvania.