The American experiment stands apart from every other political project in history. What Abraham Lincoln called our “edifice of liberty and equal rights” is predicated on the faith of our founding fathers in human agency and equality, and in a transcendent order governed by the laws of nature and nature’s God. History moves not by chance but by human action; progress emerges not from labyrinthian bureaucracies but from community innovation.
Ours is a precious inheritance. But it is not guaranteed. Popular government can only endure in the presence of popular participation. It requires that we learn our freedoms so we can cherish them, and exercise them in a manner consistent with the order of nature. It also requires that we actively seek the flourishing of our neighbors and communities. In a word, it requires self-government.
These are the duties of citizenship, and this is the radical value proposition of American republicanism: a free people can govern itself.