The White House Salute to America 250 Task Force and the U.S. Department of Education are partnering with Hillsdale College to release a series of lecture videos, titled “The Story of America.” The videos, released to commemorate various anniversaries related to the founding of America ahead of the 250-year mark since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, remind Americans why they should love their history.
“One of the things we must do to commemorate anything — commemorate just means to remember together — first we have to know the thing. We can’t remember it very well if we don’t know it very well. And so, part of the purpose of this series of lectures is to remember,” President of Hillsdale College Larry Arnn said in the introduction video. (As a recent Hillsdale graduate myself, I can attest to the college’s love for America and its history.)
The series, as described on the White House website, “highlight[s] the stories of the crucial characters and events” that led to the American Revolution and the nation’s founding.
“This is our shared heritage and our proud destiny that will continue to lead us to unimaginable achievements in the centuries to come,” the website reads.
In the introduction video, Arnn discussed the eternal truths of the Declaration of Independence, saying they are as foundational today as at the nation’s founding.
“The terms of the Declaration of Independence means that it’s true now if it was true then,” Arnn said in the video. “And it means that if it’s not true now, it was not true then. It excludes any idea of a change in the fundamental conditions.”
Arnn said the Declaration of Independence begins with general truths and ends with the Founding Fathers’ pledge to each other, making the document specific and personal to America.
“It becomes the American cause, the cause of our people, formed under principles of all people by a resolution they made, unto death, to defend it,” Arnn said. “That I think is the foundation stone of America, right there.”
Knowing the history of a country is an essential duty of every citizen, Wilfred McClay, Hillsdale College’s Victor Davis Hanson chair in Classical History and Western Civilization, said in an interview with The Federalist.
“Cicero has a saying that, ‘to remain always in ignorance of what happened before you, is to remain a child.’ So, it’s a function of becoming an adult person to know about the past,” McClay said.
McClay compared this historical knowledge to the “bumps and bruises” of any family — they are there, but once understood, the individual embraces the whole with greater appreciation.
“Sometimes it’s painful, but you can’t really fully grow into citizenship if you don’t know the whole story,” McClay said.
The history series comes after the Biden administration promoted woke ideology in schools and said it would prioritize funding curriculum teaching American kids to hate their country, as The Federalist has reported. McClay said knowing the whole story refutes propaganda narratives, such as the 1619 Project, which rewrite history to smear America’s founders and debunk their values.
While their visions for America’s future varied, McClay said the colonists all believed they were defending their traditional, sacred customs.
“They thought of themselves as Englishmen and entitled to the sort of way of life that went with that, which had included, for 150 years, them making their own decisions, making the rules for themselves, governing their own economies and income,” McClay said. “It was a conservative revolution. It sought to conserve a way of life to the degree possible.”
America’s Revolution both preserved the colonists’ practices and established a new nation — the first of its kind, according to McClay.
“The American Revolution is important because it created the first nation that subscribed to the principle that all men are created equal,” McClay said. “We get these rights from God and not from any government to be disposed, taken away, or tinkered with. Those rights are inherent in what we are, as created beings, as creatures of God.”
McClay lectured on the Battle of Lexington and Concord for the series’ second video.
“In many ways, the outcome of Lexington and Concord provided the patriots with a great public relations victory, putting the enemy firmly in the wrong and keeping him there,” McClay said in the video.
In his lecture, McClay discussed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Although the poem does not offer a “fully accurate rendering” of historical events, McClay said, it conveys their “essential spiritual meaning.” He specifically noted how Longfellow addresses the poem to children, emphasizing the need to teach America’s history to “successive generations.”
“If Longfellow is right, the deeds of Lexington and Concord exemplify enduring qualities of the character of the American people that will continue to manifest themselves, if we have the willingness to call on those memories, the capacity to respond to darkness with light, to peril with energy and determination, buoyed by the knowledge that others have done these things before us, and in a sense, for us,” McClay said at the video’s conclusion. “What was done before can be done again.”
Viewers can access the lectures and additional information for the year’s celebrations at the White House’s designated website.