Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of colonial delegates staked their lives on a set of ideas. Not political ideas-moral ones. The truth that the rights of every person come not from a king, but from God, and that no man is above the law. They also believed virtue, not power, is the true cornerstone of self-governance. And, they were right!

In 1831, a young French writer named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across this country studying our penal system. In the process he discovered America. He witnessed people animated by something deeper than self-interest-a society shaped by moral conviction and voluntary associations that bound citizens together for the common good.

That conviction was baked into the architecture of this nation from the start. Our legal traditions drew directly from Judeo-Christian moral codes: due process, judicial impartiality, the proportionality of punishment, the principle that leaders must be subject to the same laws as everyone else. These ideas weren't invented in Philadelphia in 1776. They were inherited-from a tradition that understood human dignity as something given by God, not granted by men.

Our founders knew this. John Adams wrote "the only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue." George Washington called morality "a necessary spring of popular government." A republic, they understood, could not sustain itself on institutions alone. It requires a people of character to breathe life into those institutions.

The celebration of this anniversary must be more than fireworks and ceremony. It must be a renewal of commitment to virtue.

National character isn't shaped in Washington; it's shaped in homes, schools, houses of worship, and local civic life. It starts in our family institutions, buoyed by individuals who seek righteousness aligned with the natural laws of God.

Our laws are only as good as the moral foundations beneath them. Our institutions hold only as long as people inside them hold to something higher than themselves.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 were not perfect-but, they built the incredible country we call home today. They gave us a republic rooted not in the will of a monarch, but in the dignity of every person and the authority of a moral order above any government institution.

Because of what they built, generations of Americans have had the freedom to worship, to speak, to work, to dream, and to correct the nation's wrongs over time. Because of their courage, we have had 250 years to grow-imperfectly, but always with the tools to do better embedded in the very documents our Founders left us.