As we approach July 4, 2016, the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is proper to recall what the philosopher Leo Strauss, in his introduction to Natural Right and History, called the “weight and elevation” of our founding principles. But fine principles are one thing. One must also ask, how do they fare in the maelstrom of history? Can a nation founded on those principles long endure? For the weight and elevation of our founding principles would count for little if the republic based on those principles had been unable, at crucial times, to produce citizens and statesmen with the weight and elevation to defend and advance them.

The 9/11 generation—the young men and women who have volunteered by the hundreds of thousands to fight since the attack on America 15 years ago—provide the most recent evidence that we retain as a nation that kind of weight and elevation. All is not, in our third century of existence, lost. All is not, in today’s America, merely light and low.