Two hundred fifty years ago, a small group of colonists challenged the most powerful empire on Earth. They had no standing army, no navy, and no certainty of survival. What they had was conviction. “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.”

That sentence set a standard for this nation we have spent two and a half centuries trying to live up to. The semiquincentennial gives us a chance to reflect on our standard again and ask the honest question: Are we living up to it?