About America 250
More than just a celebration, America 250 is a call to recover the ideas, rebuild the institutions, and revive the habits of citizenship and statesmanship that will ensure our republic’s survival.
Featured Post
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Dispatches from the Late Republic
Ryan P. Williams and Michael Anton unite for a sweeping reflection on the health of the American regime through Anton’s latest book, Dispatches from the Late Republic.
America 250 Posts
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American Sheriff Awards Dinner
The Claremont Institute invites our closest friends and supporters to join us on November 11 in Huntington Beach, California for an evening celebrating those who stand on the front lines of law and order in defense of the American way of life. At this year’s dinner, we will present the American Sheriff Award to Sheriff Kim Cole of Mason County, Michigan, recognizing his steadfast commitment to upholding the Constitution and advancing the cause of law and order in his community and across the nation.
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Claremont Review of Books Editorial Session
The Claremont Review of Books (CRB) annual meeting with editors and contributors is an opportunity to engage directly with the ideas, debates, and direction shaping upcoming releases. In recognition of leadership support that sustains the CRB and advances The Claremont Institute's mission, The Publication Committee invites members of the John Quincy Adams Society to join the day's events.
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John Quincy Adams and the Promise of an American Golden Age
One of the earliest civic traditions to emerge in the United States was the Fourth of July oration. Prominent citizens...
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Screening
Every civilization must have its heroes; every civilization must have a way to propagate the stories of their heroic deeds. When faced with the crisis of the West, Director John Ford turned to the American Western—uniting the great questions of the Homeric Epics with the civilizational questions of the American Frontier. For America’s 250th Anniversary, the Claremont Institute invites you to join us for a sneak peak of our fellowships, with a private screening of the Ford Classic: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
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Homecoming Celebration and Salvatori Prize Honoring Charles Kesler
On this year’s Constitution Day, in the 250th year of the American Founding, The Claremont Institute is excited to host an intimate and monumental gathering at Mount Vernon.
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Sacred Honor
At two o’clock in the afternoon on August 17, 1858, Abraham Lincoln rose to address a crowd gathered at the...
Podcast
What Makes an American—Birthright Citizenship and the U.S. at 250
The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to...
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America’s Revolutionary Family Regime
The Declaration of Independence imagines revolution and legislation as two distinct phases in man’s political history. First, an aggrieved people...
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Tom West’s Founding
Convention requires me to disclose that I have known, admired, and learned from Thomas G. West for more than thirty...
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The State of Our Union
The Claremont Institute invites you to join us in Irvine, California on August 5th for The State of Our Union—an evening of candid, direct, and very personal reflections from the front lines of the battle to save our country. Featured speakers include Claremont fellows, alumni, and leaders who are helping shape today’s political moment as we work to usher in a Golden Age of America.
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Harry Jaffa, America 250, and the Creed-Culture Debate
The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has reignited an old debate on the Right between the immoderate defenders...
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John Quincy Adams and the Fourth of July
Oratory is out of fashion. The word itself sounds archaic to our ears, denoting something people used to practice in...
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Defining the Declaration’s “One People”
Though the Fourth of July is less than a month away, the 250th anniversary of American independence has been met...
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Justice Thomas’s Declaration
As the Fourth of July approaches in this semiquincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence, the best commemorations will contain...
Podcast
The American Military at 250 ft. Will Thibeau
The U.S. Military is the mightiest fighting force in history. Yet its evolution has been long and complex, and today...
Recovering the American Idea
America’s 250th anniversary arrives at a pivotal time. Determined leaders working to renew America fight for the upper hand in a struggle against the well-organized forces bent on civic madness. The battle rocks the foundations of self-government, made fragile by a century of corrosive assault. Yet there is hope, where America has always found it before—in the Creator who endowed our rights, and the American principles that safeguard them.
We rightly celebrate the American experiment in liberty, even as we face institutional weakness, civic uncertainty, and government bloat that strays far from the Constitution’s design. But even as the anniversary calls for grateful commemoration, it calls for a sober assessment of our civic condition, and a renewed effort to recover the high standards required for self-government.
Claremont exists to meet that challenge and to safeguard the future of our republic.
For decades, Claremont has studied the principles of the American Founding—the true principles of free government—and how to apply them. Our government, and many of our people, have wandered far from that design. It is our job to help America get back on the correct foundation.
Because America’s principles are true, they are also powerful and enduring—as applicable today as they were 250 years ago. Our teaching, writing, and leadership all serve the same end of making the case for ordered liberty, explaining how our institutions within a constitutional framework were meant to secure it, and preparing leaders who know how to work inside those institutions rather than stand apart from them.
America 250 brings that effort into sharper view and ensures that America remains a nation worth celebrating for generations to come.
The Founding survives not through nostalgia, but through a capacity for correction and renewal that has carried it across generations. As the nation marks its 250th year, citizens can look ahead with confidence rooted in understanding. What is done now will help ensure liberty and self-government can be celebrated by our citizens for centuries to come.
