This year, Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which declared the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” including the rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The leaders of the Democratic Party, however, deny this self-evident truth. Take, for example, House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. On Jan. 11, 2023, House Republicans brought up the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This very simple and straightforward bill, as explained by its official summary, would have required that when “a child” is “born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion … a health care practitioner who is present must (1) exercise the same degree of care as would reasonably be provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) ensure the child is immediately admitted to a hospital.” This proposal to protect born babies outraged Jeffries, who saw it as an attack on one of the fundamental principles embraced by his political party. “As Democrats, we believe in a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions, period, full stop, decisions that should be between a woman, her family, and her doctors, period, full stop,” he said on the House floor. “We believe in Roe v. Wade,” said Jeffries. “Do you wonder about our position? That is it. The Women’s Health Protection Act, that is it. Freedom to make your own reproductive healthcare decisions, that is it. As compared to a clear effort—that is what this bill is about today, a march toward criminalizing abortion care, a nationwide ban, government-mandated pregnancies, part of an extreme MAGA Republican agenda.” That day, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act passed the Republican-controlled House 220-210. No Republican voted against it—but only one Democrat (Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas) voted for it. It did not come up in the then-Democrat-controlled Senate. The Women’s Health Protection Act that Jeffries said his party supported would prohibit, according to its official summary, “governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services” before the viability of the unborn baby. After viability, it would prohibit government restrictions on abortions done to protect a patient’s “health.” In other words, it would legalize the killing of unborn babies nationwide. In opposing the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Jeffries likely feared that if Democrats recognized the unalienable right to life of a newly born baby, they would not be able to defend denying the right to life of that same baby just moments before birth. Later that same year, when Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., was nominated to be speaker of the House, Jeffries went on CNN and accused Johnson of having what he called “extreme views.” The primary example of these “extreme views” that Jeffries cited was: “Mike Johnson wants to criminalize abortion care and impose a nationwide ban.” When the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act came up in the Senate on Jan. 22, 2025, as this column has noted before, Democrats used the filibuster to block it. “This bill is a metaphor for what is to come: an emboldened, extremist anti-choice resurgence far, far further to the right than the American people are,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said on the Senate floor that day about this proposal to protect born babies. When the House voted on this bill the next day, it passed 217-204—but, once again, only one Democrat (Cuellar) voted for it. Jeffries, of course, voted against it again—as he had in 2015, 2018 and 2023. This year on June 24—the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade—Jeffries held a press conference with other House Democratic leaders. “The Dobbs decision was unjust, unacceptable and un-American,” he claimed. “As Democrats, we believe in a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions,” Jeffries said. “It’s a decision that should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor, not right-wing officials trying to jam their extreme ideology down the throats of women throughout the United States of America and their families. And as House Democrats, we will continue to push with the fierce urgency of now to protect the reproductive freedom of women, to stand up and forcefully advocate for the Women’s Health Protection Act and all other enlightened pieces of legislation designed to ensure that we are protecting the health and well-being of the women throughout the United States of America.” Schumer also spoke at a press conference marking the fourth anniversary of Dobbs—and called for abortion to be a defining issue in this year’s midterm elections. “So, Republicans created this horror story,” Schumer said. “Democrats won’t stand for it. We’re going to fight them every step of the way. … [T]his issue will help us win back the House, win back the Senate.” If Democrats do win control of the House and Senate in this year’s midterms—on the 250th anniversary of American independence—Jeffries and Schumer are likely to become the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader, respectively. In those roles, they would lead their party in seeking to violate the first principle of the Declaration of Independence by denying unborn babies their unalienable God-given right to life. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

RealClearWire—This summer, Philadelphia is celebrating its role as the birthplace of America. Tourists from around the world are descending on Independence Hall, where 250 years ago a group of colonists declared that governments exist to secure the rights of the people, not the other way around. It’s a fitting moment to ask whether Pennsylvania is living up to that promise. For too many families, the answer seems to be “no.” Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement and Opportunity Scholarship tax credit programs allow businesses and individuals to receive credits against their state income taxes when they donate to organizations that provide scholarships for students. EITC was one of the first tax credit scholarships in the nation—and, let’s face it, our commonwealth is rarely at the forefront of innovative ideas anymore. Now, a majority of lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House—every Democrat and three Republicans—voted for a bill that would kill both programs and replace them with a new program that would be more burdensome for schools. While states across the country are increasingly embracing educational freedom and parental choice, some Pennsylvania lawmakers want to go in the opposite direction. In 2023–24, more than 100,000 K-12 scholarships were awarded through EITC and OSTC, but families submitted more than 170,000 applications that year. This means that around 70,000 scholarship applications were turned away. In other words, these are popular with Pennsylvania families.   My own family experienced the benefits of EITC first-hand. When my children were younger, we utilized EITC scholarships to afford tuition at a small Catholic school that provided a nurturing environment for them. EITC and OSTC scholarships are targeted at lower- and middle-income families trying to give their kids a shot at a better education. For example, the median income of Philly families receiving tax credit scholarships through the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is $63,000, well below median family income in Philadelphia ($75,000) and Pennsylvania ($101,000). It’s also worth noting that the average scholarship was less than $3,000 in 2023-24. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania public schools received an average of $23,000 per student that year, and Philly schools received nearly $25,000. Imagine how many kids could be helped if the program grew with demand so all applications were accepted and the average scholarship was more in line with the cost of education. Then there’s what the proposal calls the “Accountability for Diverted Tax Dollars Restricted Account,” a name that shows the sponsors’ true colors. Tax credits aren’t “diverted dollars.” The state isn’t cutting a check; it’s allowing people to direct a portion of their own tax liability toward children’s education. Businesses and individuals choose how much to give, to whom, and when. Calling that a “diversion” assumes every potential tax dollar rightfully belongs to the government. The founders must be rolling over in their graves. Participating private schools would face new mandates if the bill were enacted. Rather than helping students, history shows that increasing the cost of participating in scholarship programs tends push high-quality schools, small schools, and newer schools out of the program, thus limiting options for families. It’s not as if public schools have a great track record of meeting kids’ needs. Fewer than 20% of Philadelphia school district students scored proficient or better in math or reading on the latest Nation’s Report Card, well below the average nationwide, statewide, and in other large U.S. cities. It’s a number that should cast a long, dark shadow over the district’s much touted four-year graduation rate. In the city that championed the idea that all men are created equal, too many kids are being handed an unequal start. This is why our tax credit scholarship programs are so important—and why this proposal to drastically change them deserves scrutiny. EITC and OSTC work because they’re built around a simple idea: parents know what their kids need better than government bureaucrats do. A scholarship follows a child to a school his or her parents choose. The school succeeds or fails based on whether families keep showing up. That accountability is direct and immediate—and much more effective than government mandates. Philadelphia is the centerpiece of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations because it’s where American independence was announced to the world, predicated on our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The families using Pennsylvania’s scholarship programs are embracing one of the most important liberties: that of choosing the environment where their children’s formative years are spent. The least lawmakers can do is not make that harder. This article was originally published by RealClearPennsylvania and made available via RealClearWire. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

“Four score and seven years” after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the survival of the American experiment was very much in doubt.  In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln oversaw a divided country mired in a civil war with no end in sight. Without decisive Union victories, a protracted conflict could only further dampen Northern support for the war in the 1864 elections, potentially forcing a negotiated peace. Union forces in the east had suffered a string of humiliating defeats. Confederate rebels in the west held fast to a stronghold on the Mississippi River that thwarted Union attempts to impose a complete blockade. The war was truly “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure,” Lincoln said later in his immortal Gettysburg Address.  And then, the weekend of Independence Day, 1863, two decisive Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg dealt a mortal blow to the rebellion. While the Battle of Gettysburg has its rightful place in historic military lore, the fall of Vicksburg on July Fourth was arguably of greater importance to the Union ultimately prevailing in its greatest test yet.  The fortified city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, sat high on bluffs over the Mississippi River and enabled Confederate control of at least part of the crucial waterway. While the Union had asserted clear naval supremacy in the open seas, the Confederate presence on the Mississippi maintained a bridge to its western states and prevented a complete blockade that was so crucial to the Union’s war strategy. The rebels’ partial control of the river also hindered Northern commerce at a time when navigable rivers were critical to accessing the interior of the vast young country.  “See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket,” Lincoln reportedly said, according to U.S. Adm. David Porter’s memoirs. “We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can defy us from Vicksburg.” The city’s formidable defenses did not stop rising star Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Tennessee and one of the few Union generals to score victories Lincoln desperately needed early in the war. In April 1863, he loaded his men on transports and sent them on a daring night run down the river and past the city’s guns. The gambit succeeded, his army eventually landed in Mississippi far below the city, and at the beginning of May, he embarked on a weeks-long campaign into the state’s interior. The ambitious campaign foiled two Confederate armies and eventually trapped more than 30,000 Confederate troops around Vicksburg.  After launching two bloody, unsuccessful assaults on the Confederate fortifications that resulted in more than 3,000 Union casualties, Grant settled in for a siege in the hot summer. However, with few siege guns, victory was far from certain. For 47 days, Grant’s army surrounded the city and pounded away at the fortifications. The Fourth of July loomed large, and weary Confederates expected the Union to launch an all-out assault on the holiday. Fearing a humiliating rout on Independence Day, the commander of the city’s defense, John C. Pemberton, met with Grant to discuss a surrender. On July Fourth, the Confederates surrendered, and the last remaining rebel fortress on the Mississippi River fell. Grant’s terms—and his army—were magnanimous. “Our soldiers were no sooner inside the lines than the two armies began to fraternize,” he wrote later in his memoirs. “The enemy had been suffering, particularly towards the last. I myself saw our men taking bread from their haversacks and giving it to the enemy they had so recently been engaged in starving out.” Lincoln, when informed of the news of Vicksburg’s fall, said, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” The conquest split the Confederacy in half, completed a suffocating U.S. naval blockade, and removed an entire Confederate army from the field.  The victory was not just one of arms. The quality of the Union generals and officers, so wanting at the beginning of the war, was fast rising. “A military education was acquired which no other school could have given,” Grant wrote in his memoirs of the campaign’s effect on his army.  Grant’s own military stature was now undeniable, as well. He had gained the enduring admiration of Lincoln and, by the spring of 1864, was placed in charge of all Union forces, setting the stage for his postbellum ascent to the presidency. He knew well the full significance of that July Fourth, later writing, “The fate of the Confederacy was sealed when Vicksburg fell. Much hard fighting was to be done afterwards and many precious lives were to be sacrificed; but the MORALE was with the supporters of the Union ever after.”

As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, the skies will be filled with not only fireworks but song. Those great patriotic tunes we all know by heart, even when we can’t hit all the notes. Though the songs may be as familiar as the red, white, and blue, the stories behind them often are not. In Part 1, we dove into the duel between “God Bless America” and “This Land Is Your Land.”Part 2, we looked at three patriotic classics we swiped from Britain. In Part 3, we close where America began: on its knees, acknowledging the source of its strength. ‘God Bless America’ Revisited We’ve already talked about how “God Bless America” came about. But we didn’t talk about the star of the song. The One central to the American story and so many of our favorite patriotic classics. That is, as the declaration describes Him, “our Creator,” whose “Divine Providence” guides our nation’s fortunes. The chorus of “God Bless America” is a prayer, a call out to God to bless this land, to “stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above.” George Washington was no Irving Berlin—then again, Irving Berlin didn’t put a whippin’ on the world’s most powerful army—but hear General Washington express the same prayer for America in his Circular Letter to the States in June 1783: I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have the United States in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, Humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation. Amen. ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ While Washington called to God for justice and mercy, come the Civil War, an abolitionist named Julia Ward Howe was calling out to the Lord for vengeance. On the night of Nov. 18, 1861, just months after the outbreak of the War Between the States, Howe took a soldiers song called “John Brown’s Body” and wrote out a new set of lyrics, bringing God into the war firmly on the side of the Union. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:His truth is marching on. For Howe, the Lord walks among the soldiers in their camps: I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:His day is marching on. He leads the troops into battle: He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!Our God is marching on. His own sacrifice is to be matched by our own in the cause of ending slavery. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. In total, over 360,000 Union soldiers would die to end the scourge of slavery. Oh, but Howe’s rousing chorus! Glory, glory, hallelujah!Glory, glory, hallelujah!Glory, glory, hallelujah!His truth is marching on. Perhaps fittingly, it would take a former U.S. Army soldier born in the Confederate state of Mississippi to reunite the South and the North in song, powerfully pairing Howe’s battle hymn with a rebel favorite. Here’s Elvis Presley, performing his “American Trilogy,” featuring “Dixie,” “All My Trials,” and, unforgettably, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” No Kings, America? Well, maybe one. ‘America, the Beautiful’ Like “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America, the Beautiful” started as a poem. Katharine Lee Bates, inspired by a trip out West, penned a poem called “Pike’s Peak,” which she soon changed to “America.” It was published in the July 4, 1895, edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist. The poem caught on, and many attempts were made to put a melody to it. In fact, roughly 75 melodies were attached to the words. That is, until a church organist in Newark, New Jersey, named Samuel A. Ward took a shot at it. In 1910, Bates’ lyrics and Ward’s melody were published together as “America the Beautiful.” Our unofficial national anthem was born. Here’s what it sounded like in 1923: But that’s not the version that captures the American story. In 1972, on “The Dick Cavett Show,” Ray Charles sat down at his piano. Ray Charles, blind, born black in a time of ruthless segregation and discrimination, a heroin addict. Yet through his God-given ability and this imperfect land of opportunity, where we seek a “more perfect Union,” where God can “mend thine ev’ry flaw,” Ray Charles rose to become one of the seminal figures in American cultural history. Think of what he overcame—think of what America has overcome—as Brother Ray takes us to church, and he brings us home for our 250th birthday. America! America!God done shed His grace on thee,And crown thy good with brotherhoodFrom sea to shining sea! We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The debates between Abraham Lincoln and Sen. Stephen Douglas not only rank amongst America’s landmark speeches but could be a primer for political philosophy students. In campaigning against one another, the rising statesman and elder politician tackled some of the most essential questions of morality and politics. What does it mean to be human? To be a citizen? Who decides? For Lincoln, the answers revolve around the logic of the Declaration of Independence. While the Illinois representatives formally debated seven times, they also delivered rival remarks in Chicago on July 4, 1858. Lincoln’s address is now remembered as his “electric cord” speech. In it, Lincoln argued that the principle that animates and unites Americans as a people across generations is “all men are created equal.” Denouncing the Dred Scott decision (in which the Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens), Lincoln explained the meaning of that maxim: “I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity.” However, Lincoln argued, they did consider them “equal in ‘certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This they said, and this meant.”  Lincoln’s focus on the meaning of equality made sense: it was the crucial issue of the time. New states were entering the union and could sway the country toward freedom or slavery depending on what they allowed within their own borders. Sen. Douglas cared not whether slavery be voted up or down. For him, “popular sovereignty” meant that the people (or rather a certain segment of the people) of a territory should be able to determine if a state was a free state or a slave state. After all, the majority rules, and America boasts a federalist system. In other words, states could decide the question for themselves. Lincoln certainly agreed that states should be able to shape local policies. He would not want to interfere with cranberry laws in Indiana or oyster laws in Virginia. But Lincoln objected to Douglas’s view, which seemed to reduce the institution of slavery “as something having no moral question in it.”    While a republic can tolerate all sorts of policy disagreements, it requires unity when it comes to first principles. America had persisted with the tension of slavery for 82 years, but it could only do so because the “public mind did rest” in the belief that slavery was on the “course of ultimate extinction.” The growing indifference toward, or worse, active justification of slavey, began by John C. Calhoun and furthered by Stepehen Douglas, pulled Lincoln back into the political arena to renew the work of the Founding. As many did during the beginnings of the country, Lincoln compared the tyranny of a king with slavery: “Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.” The analogy was particularly apt for a speech delivered amidst Independence Day festivities. According to Lincoln, those celebrations are “to remind ourselves of all the good done in th[e] process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it.” Eliciting a peoples’ common history and origin story inculcates gratitude. Citizens reflect on how far we have come as a nation. This provides the opportunity to be thankful for all the people who have contributed to America moving towards justice and the institutions that contemporaries benefit from but did not build by themselves. Civic traditions foster goodwill and unity towards fellow citizens across generations. By Lincoln’s time, around half of America’s populace could not trace their lineage to the “iron men” of the Founding. Still, the binding ties of the American people persisted—and would persist for many ages to come. The American national character is sustained by custom and culture and grounded in principle. Lincoln closed his July 4th speech by reflecting on this reality, and his stirrings in Chicago rank with the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural. While many have no blood ties to the Founding Fathers: “When they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. “That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.” Today, we celebrate America’s 250th birthday and the principles that, for us, are ever ancient, ever new. We recall them, grapple with their meaning, and hear their murmurings when we fall short of their demands. To be able to do so is a responsibility and a privilege. So, happy birthday, America. And thank you.