The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversaryof American independence, yet the founding is controversial now in ways it hasnot been in decades. The American Enterprise Institute offers a majorintellectual and educational project to reintroduce Americans to the uniquevalue of their national inheritance.
In the fourth volume of this series, legalscholars and political scientists examine the many ways in which the foundinggeneration understood the “unalienable rights” immortalized by the Declarationof Independence. Although the Declaration described the right to life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness as a “self-evident” truth, this characterizationbelied the Revolutionary era’s complex discourse on the origins of politicalrights and their role in sustaining a political community.
Delving into these debates reveals how theAmerican Revolution encoded a productive tension between individual rights andcommunal responsibilities at the nation’s founding.
