What’s Next? Let’s Make Some Independence Day Promises

Fireworks burst in the skies during "Salute to America 250" Fourth of July celebrations in Washington on July 4, 2026. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Commentary

The party is over.

Americans spent about $2.5 billion on fireworks alone, celebrating our 250th birthday with more than 300 million pounds of everything from Roman candles to multiple-shot “cakes” and sparklers. The Washington display alone featured a recording-breaking show of more than 850,000 pyrotechnics fired off from 10 locations. Backyard celebrants consumed more than 150 million hot dogs and truckloads of hamburgers during this national extravaganza. Here for the World Cup, millions of soccer fans from around the world joined in the Independence Day fun.

The Fourth was like New Year’s in July, but was missing one vital component.

Resolutions.

‘We Hereby Resolve’

On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the most famous speech in American history, the Gettysburg Address. He concluded by proposing a resolution for his listeners: “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln was asking the crowd and the nation to take a solemn promise to refurbish and survey with new eyes the meaning of American liberty and the republic established as its safeguard.

On the recently posted video to YouTube “Thread of Liberty: Keeping Our Republic,” the historians and commentators make the same point again and again, that “each generation has to learn the responsibilities, the rights, the duties of citizenship.” Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute explains, “In everything that makes this country great, in everything that we wake up to every day, every generation has to look at that and say, ‘This is worth sacrificing for, this is worth revering, and this is what I want to leave my kids.’”

In her words—and the words of so many others, past and present—we find the springboard for patriotism. Unlike New Year’s resolutions, where we generally look inward to make personal changes, Independence Day resolutions are best directed outward, extending to our family, friends, neighbors, community, and in the end, to our country.

‘Intelligent Patriotism’

And unlike so many of those January First ambitions to lose weight, to get into shape, and to draw tight the purse strings, the first necessary steps of our Independence Day resolutions shouldn’t prove burdensome. To read more about our country’s history and culture, to learn lessons from those who have gone before us, whether they are historical figures or our grandparents, to visit museums and historic sites: all these activities and more afford more pleasure than pain, for we have the immense, varied, and fascinating river of the past from which to draw our buckets of information and inspiration.

In addition to The Epoch Times, for example, which brings readers so many stories from days gone by, American Heritage Magazine offers free access to its vast archive of articles dating from 1949 to the present. Search the site for subjects that interest you—American music, railroads, the Spanish-American War—and dozens of stories on that topic will pop up, all written by historians or experts in a particular field. High school and college students can delve into this treasure chest and discover gold for their papers and essays, while the rest of us can find delight.

Hillsdale College offers several free online courses in American history. The Great American Story course, for instance, brings together college president Larry Arne and historian and writer Wilfred McClay to teach the history of our country as a “land of hope founded on high principles … a broad and unbiased study of the kind essential to the cultivation of intelligent patriotism.”

Focusing on some specific subject of interest can also open doors to the American past. If your passion is for building and architecture, a little research into your community’s older houses and public buildings can bring alive both the people from the past and broader engagement with the nation’s story. If you enjoy collecting antiques, exploring the history behind vintage costume jewelry or a cast iron kettle brings to life the people who once regarded these treasures as everyday objects.

Whatever vehicle you board for your journey into the past, I would strongly recommend reading Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 speech at the Sorbonne, “Citizenship in a Republic.” Today we remember Roosevelt’s address as “the Man in the Arena Speech,” because of two sentences about the hero “whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood” and “who spends himself in a worthy cause.” But there is so much more here, thoughts and sentiments even more pertinent to our time than when spoken over a century ago. It’s a much-needed compass and map to citizenship and patriotism, especially given that a Gallup poll released just days before this year’s Independence Day shows pride in America plummeting.

Next Comes the Hard Part

“Good citizenship,” said Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, “is not good citizenship if only exhibited in the home. There remains the duties of the individual in relation to the State, and these duties are none too easy under the conditions which exist where the effort is made to carry on the free government in a complex industrial civilization.”

All of us, men and women, young and old, are called to enter the playing field of culture and politics rather than stand on the sidelines. Here, Roosevelt tells us in his address, we may contribute in small ways or great to the commonwealth, and by our actions, help ensure that our communities and our republic not only honor and preserve the ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” professed by those who have preceded us, but also keep those principles alive and well for those who follow.

Search online for “ways to be a good citizen” and we find some of the same suggestions over and over again. Vote. Keep in touch with the issues of the day. Volunteer with organizations seeking to make your community a better place to live. Practice neighborliness by being kind and helpful to others. Start a high school history club, where students could gather once a month for discussion after reading some selected material or watching a movie, thereby boosting their knowledge of Americana while deepening friendships.

And stay abreast of local politics. When possible, attend meetings of the school board or town and county councils, and make your voice heard. Recently in my own community of Front Royal, when hosting a data center became an issue here, more than 350 people attended both town and county meetings, with over 100 people speaking at each event in protest of the proposal. Both boards voted to reject data centers.

At the conclusion of “Thread of Liberty,” one commentator notes that unlike other national anthems, “The Star-Spangled Banner” asks questions. It begins with “Oh Say Can You See,” but saves the most important question for the last:

“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

It’s up to us to keep that flag flying.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.