The Words That Made America

68 snips

Jul 2, 2025

Akhil Reed Amar, a Yale constitutional law professor and author, discusses America's 250th birthday with a focus on national pride and achievements. He highlights the contrasts between current sentiments and historical milestones, including the Declaration of Independence penned by Jefferson. The conversation dives into the lives of key figures like Adams and Washington, exploring their contributions amidst the backdrop of slavery's contradictions. Amar emphasizes the rich history of American ideals, the evolution of constitutional narratives, and the enduring significance of free speech.

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INSIGHT

America Founded on Ideas

America's foundation is unique as it is based on a set of ideas, not lineage or blood.
The Declaration of Independence, crafted collectively, launched an unprecedented constitutional project.

INSIGHT

Constitution Driven by War Needs

The U.S. Constitution originated from practical wartime needs for a stronger central government.
Taxation powers and a strong executive emerged from challenges faced during and after the Revolutionary War.

ANECDOTE

Franklin's Viral Join or Die Cartoon

Benjamin Franklin created the first political cartoon, 'Join or Die,' as a viral meme to unify the colonies.
It visually emphasized that unity was essential for survival, influencing American democratic culture.

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America is turning 250. And we’re throwing a yearlong celebration of the greatest country on Earth. The greatest? Yes. The greatest.

We realize that’s not a popular thing to say these days. Americans have a way of taking this country for granted: a Gallup poll released earlier this week shows that American pride has reached a new low. And the world at large, which is wealthier and freer than it has ever been in history thanks to American power and largesse, often resents us. We get it. As journalists, we spend most of our time finding problems and exposing them. It’s what the job calls for.

But if you only focus on the negatives, you get a distorted view of reality. As America hits this milestone birthday, it’s worthwhile to take a moment to step back and look closely at where we actually are—and the reality of life in America today compared to other times and places. That reality is pretty spectacular.

Could Thomas Jefferson and the men gathered in Philadelphia who wrote down the words that made our world—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”—ever have imagined what their Declaration of Independence would bring?

The Constitution. The end of slavery—and the defeat of Hitler. Astonishing wealth and medical breakthroughs. Silicon Valley. The most powerful military in the world. The moon landing. Hollywood. The Hoover Dam. The Statue of Liberty (a gift from France). Actual liberation (a thing we gave France). Humphrey Bogart and Tom Hanks. Josephine Baker and Beyoncé. Hot dogs. Corn dogs. American Chinese food. American Italian food. The Roosevelts and the Kennedys. The Barrymores and the Fondas. Winston Churchill (his mom was from Brooklyn). The Marshall Plan and Thurgood Marshall. Star Wars. Missile-defense shields. Baseball. Football. The military-industrial complex. Freedom of religion. UFO cults. Television. The internet. The Pill. The Pope. The automobile, the airplane, and AI. Jazz and the blues. The polio vaccine and GLP-1s, the UFC and Dolly Parton.

The list goes on because it’s really, truly endless. Ours is a country where you can hear 800 languages spoken in Queens, drive two hours and end up among the Amish in Pennsylvania. We are 330 million people, from California to New York Island, gathered together as one.

Each of those 330 million will tell you that ours is not a perfect country. But we suspect most of them would agree that their lives would not be possible without it. So for the next 12 months, we’re going to toast to our freedoms on the page, on this podcast and in real life. And we’re doing it the Free Press way: by delving into all of it—the bad and the good and the great, the strange and the wonderful and the wild.

And today—on America’s 249th birthday—we’re kicking off this yearlong event with none other than Akhil Reed Amar. Akhil has a unique understanding of this country—and our Constitution. Akhil is a Democrat who testified on behalf of Brett Kavanaugh, is a member of The Federalist Society, who is pro-choice but also anti-Roe—and these seeming contradictions make him perfectly suited to answer questions about the political and legal polarization we find ourselves in today.

Akhil is a constitutional law professor at Yale and the author of the brilliant book The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840. He also hosts the podcast Amarica's Constitution, and you might recognize his name from his work in The Atlantic. I ask him about the unique history that created our founding document, the state of the country, our political polarization, the American legal system, and what this country means to him.

The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

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