It is officially 2026, which means America is turning 250 this year. Our question on this semiquincentennial looks back to America’s founding and the constitutional framework that gave birth to our nation. America is the only nation founded not on blood or soil, but on a creed. Established by the Declaration of Independence, this creed, now more than ever, should be viewed through Jefferson’s words as a unifying force in our country as we continue to confront the challenges of a multicultural society. Both sides of the aisle have factions that seek to blame American democracy for our difficulties. Still, Professor Wood assures us that Americans are better positioned than any other people to mitigate these challenges because of our creedal identity. So what is the source of our strength? Is civic education the key to protecting our ideals? And how important are a free society and assimilation in preserving them?

Gordon Wood is a renowned and highly awarded historian and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He is the author of the Creation of the American Republic which won the Bancroft Prize and the John H. Dunning Prize, and The Radicalism of the American Revolution, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, among many other written works. In 2011 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Obama and the Churchill Bell by Colonial Williamsburg. He is largely regarded as a leading scholar of Early American history, known specifically for his masterful prose and transformative understanding of true radicalism of the American Revolution. The American Enterprise Institute most recently awarded him the Irving Kristol Award.

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