The Meaning of the Fourth of July

In other words, moral responsibility is indispensable to the success of the Republic. Thus, cynicism as to the meaning of our origins is irrelevant to the fulfillment of our nation's promise. It will be the people, who by their conduct and values, will determine whether this nation lives up to its charter.

John Quincy Adams said as much when he said: "[T]he virtue which had been infused into the Constitution of the United States...was no other than the concretion of those abstract principles which had been first proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence...This was the platform upon which the Constitution of the United States had been erected. Its virtues, its republican character, consisted in its conformity to the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and its administration must necessarily...depend upon the stability and duration in the hearts and minds of the people of that virtue, or in other words, of those principles, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution of the United States."

John Quincy Adams understood and Pope John Paul II understand what many Americans today, it would seem, do not. The responsibility for the success or failure of the United States of America lies squarely on the shoulders of the American people - and nowhere else. As a democratic society, we do not have the luxury of passing our obligations to society on to someone else. It is our duty. It is our responsibility.

Those who seek to criticize and denigrate America for the sins of its past fail to grasp the most central truth of its very existence. We are, in the words of Lincoln, a nation built on a system of government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." If our government becomes corrupt, it is because the people tolerate corruption. If it becomes distant and irrelevant, it is because the people have allowed it to become so. If it becomes tyrannical, trampling on those liberties we hold most dear, it is because we have failed in our capacity to properly restrain it. It is our government, and we must accept responsibility for it.

But there's more to the Pope's words than a recognition of our civic responsibility. In order to "establish justice" and "promote the general welfare," our government must respond to the needs of the people and the challenges within our society. Many of these challenges we bring

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