250 Years and Counting: The Top Eleven Events that Defined American Greatness

Transcript

250 Years and Counting: The Top Eleven Events that Defined American Greatness

June 2026

What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.

Alexander Hamilton

I debated even doing a 250th anniversary series, not because of a lack of immense importance; it is an incredible milestone.  Instead, my concern was with all the postings on this subject, I might commit one of the worst calumnies a writer can produce – a copy-cat me-too piece.  But then I remember this phrase from the late, yes, despite his leftist proclivities, great film critic Roger Ebert, “it is not what it is about, but how it is about it.”  I try, in every one of my postings, to learn the historical record to the point where I can provide something unique or interesting.  And I also utilize a more casual writing style. Something akin to a historical conservation rather than a straight-out lecture.  Just as the movie Die Hard was much more than a cop trying to stop a group of bad guys from stealing money, I hope my thoughts on the 250th anniversary are more than just a bunch of guys who created an awesome nation two and a half centuries ago.  

So let’s begin with fish.  Do they know they’re wet?  In fairness, they tend to have very small brains, and given that much of their evolution occurred back in the Paleozoic Era, they probably do not ponder such things.  And in double fairness, we do not think much about breathing unless we complete an uphill 10K or for the unfortunate for whom three packs of Marlboros per day turned one’s lungs into charcoal briquettes.  Then we think about breathing.  

Nor do many think about the American Revolution or what makes America, here is that dreaded word, exceptional.  Sure, we usually receive some schooling from the junior or high school history teacher, who often seems as bored as many of the kids in the class.  We think about it for a few hot moments on July 4, amidst the barbecue and the fireworks. Yet even then, it is more USA! USA! than about the nature of our Republic.  It could be Boxer Day or Bastille Day as much as anyone could answer.  

I am talking about the things that make our nation unique.  And we are exceptional, not in the sense that all people are unique.  Sure, the Greeks are exceptional in their ways, as are the Laotians.  But those nations did not begin as the first, successful, continental-wide Republic.  No other nation has led the world in economic output for the past 150 years, not even the United Kingdom, Germany, or Russia.  No other nation has seen 46 leaders come and go with only one true conflict that threatened to rend the nation apart.  We are not exceptional as Americans; we are exceptional compared to other countries.  

The items born out of the last 250 years that shaped our lives, our nation, and our world.  The stuff that made the water in which we now swim, knowing we are wet. 

11. South Carolina backs down to Jackson 

Addressing South Carolina, Jackson declared, “The laws of the United States must be executed,” and “Disunion by armed force is treason”. He warned citizens, “Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you.”

The Nullification Crisis was between the state of South Carolina and the federal government in 1832–33 over the former’s attempt to declare null and void within the state the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The resolution of this crisis in favor of the federal government undermined the nullification doctrine, the constitutional theory that upheld the right of states to nullify federal acts within their boundaries.

The significance lies in the timing.  Had the United States conducted the Civil War in the 1830s, the North would have more than likely lost.  Now, there would not have been a Lee or Stonewall Jackson, but the military tradition of the South for the first 80 years of the Republic was simply far greater than the North.  From Washington to Jackson to William Henry Harrison, Winfield Scott, and Zachery Taylor, all were born in the South.  One of the few notable military exceptions was Nathaneal Greene.  The North won the Civil War due to greater manpower and resources, which were not as lopsided in the 1830s.  Three decades prior to Lincoln, Jackson had already preserved the Union and bought time.   

This event established federal supremacy for some ill, but mostly good.

10. Success in the Cold War

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” Ronald Reagan  

The United States’ success in the Cold War was one of the defining achievements of modern American history. From the end of World War II in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States engaged in a global struggle against the spread of communism and the expansion of Soviet influence. Unlike traditional wars, the Cold War was fought through diplomacy, economic competition, military alliances, proxy wars, intelligence operations, technological innovation, and ideological rivalry rather than direct large-scale combat between the two superpowers. 

By the end of the conflict, the United States had emerged as the world’s sole superpower, while the Soviet Union had disintegrated into fifteen independent republics. American success in the Cold War resulted from a combination of economic strength, military power, effective alliances, technological leadership, and the enduring appeal of democratic institutions.

However, the Cold War was not just about a naked power grab but whether the anomaly of small-r republican rule could meet the challenge of autocracy.  For all of the trappings of Marxist ideology, the core of the Soviets, then, as is the case with the Chinese today, was despotism, the natural order of rule for the first 4,800 years of written human existence.  The commissar, general secretary, or even president in these nations is merely another title alongside that of Pharaoh, King, Emperor, Shah, Sultan, or Emir.  It was not the United States that prevailed, but rule by the people.  

9. Civil Rights Legislation of 1964

“It does say that those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, and restaurants, and movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public.” Lyndon B Johnson

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark US labor and civil rights law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964. It outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, effectively dismantling institutionalized segregation (Jim Crow) and unequal voter registration requirements

The act contains 11 main sections, known as “Titles,” that target specific areas of discrimination, and I am going to feature the first two here: 

• Title I (Voting Rights): Banned unequal application of voter registration requirements. It required that voting rules be applied equally to all races.
• Title II (Public Accommodations): Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce

I think the Great Society is a failure, but not because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. My argument is that work in 1964 secured rights stated in the Constitutional amendments after 1865. It was the spending aspects of the Great Society that were the failing issues.  

The Civil Rights Act was the culmination of the process begun in the Declaration, repeated in the Gettysburg Address, and enacted by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, which we will address later in this episode.  

8. Passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments 

Ratified between 1865 and 1870, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, known as the “Reconstruction Amendments,” ended slavery in the United States, ensured birthright citizenship, as well as due process and “equal protection of the laws” under the federal and state governments, and expanded voting rights by prohibiting discrimination based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The Reconstruction Amendments also granted Congress the power to enforce the amendments’ provisions through federal legislation. The 14th Amendment eliminated the three-fifths rule in Article I, Sec 2, cl. 3, and punished any state that did not permit male citizens twenty-one years old or older to vote by reducing the state’s proportional representation. This Amendment also barred those who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United States from public office, unless Congress voted to remove this prohibition. The Reconstruction Amendments were essential to reuniting the United States during Reconstruction, and Confederate states were required to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments to be readmitted to the Union. These three laws were the legislative realization of the Declaration and the Gettysburg Address.  

7. Winning the Mexican-American War 

The Mexican-American War, a war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846–February 1848), stemmed from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (US claim). The war—in which US forces were consistently victorious—resulted in the United States’ acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory, known as the Mexican Cession, extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean. It was also one of those wars that produced a president and most of the major leaders in the later stages of the Civil War.  

6. Election of Abraham Lincoln

Everything that made Abraham Lincoln the loved and honored man he was is in the power of the humblest American boy to imitate.

--New York Times, April 19, 1865

Zachery Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan.  The Four Horsemen of Presidential weakness.  If you’re listening to this, you probably love history as I do, but what can you tell us about these figures who, for 12 years, presided over a failing union with administrations defined by their mediocrity?  

In a corollary piece to this one, showing the mistakes made over the past 250 years (which will be released after July 4), his election might be noted as the beginning of the Civil War.  But it was just a matter of time before someone other than a so-called Doughface, a Northerner sympathetic to slavery, was elected.  I believe the states would have left if any of Lincoln’s many rivals, Seward, Bates, and especially Salmon Chase, had gotten the job.  In fact, most of these were either in 1860 or earlier, more hostile to slavery than Lincoln, who sought concessions or even mass migration to solve the issue.  Abolition came later. 

It was to our credit that we happened on someone brilliant, compassionate, and perhaps the most hidden of his talents, resolute, to maintain the Union.   And, even if crablike, his ultimate embrace of ending slavery was a testament to both his desire to secure the Union and also the evolution of his thinking, and the suppleness of his mind on the issue of abolition.  The figure who would have supported keeping slavery in the slave states, or the setup of a Central American colony for blacks, spoke of a new birth of freedom.  In three years, he ingeniously invoked the Declaration and Constitution (in a single sentence) to support his new belief, thus as he restitched the Union, he also saw a resolution of the founding principles.  

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

5. Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought about 828,000 square miles of territory into the United States from France, thereby doubling the size of the young Republic. What was known at the time as the Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the West and from the Gulf of Mexico in the South to the Canadian border in the North. Part or all of 15 states were eventually created from the land deal, which is considered one of the most important achievements of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

The Louisiana Purchase changed the complexity and even the trajectory of the United States.  Given that at the time of the purchase, the vast majority of the population of the United States lived within 100 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the cultivation of lands further to the West had not begun in earnest.  And the Mississippi River provided a natural boundary.  The allure and adventures of figures such as Lewis and Clark began to reveal the nation’s true promise and shattered the concept of borders along the mighty River.  And if Louisiana could be had, why not the rest of the continent?   

4. Winning World War II 

Students of World War II know that, despite America’s presence, the British were in the war for more than two years before the US. Also, the Soviets managed the bulk of the fighting against the Wehrmacht from mid-1941 through 1945.  But it was the supplies to both Britain and Russia that enabled them to put up a resistance.  It was the US that did almost all the fighting in the Pacific Theater.  It was the US that brought an end to hostilities against Japan with the use of the Atomic Bomb.  

At the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences, the American seated in the middle was not Stalin or Churchill.  It was the American who served as the “chairman” of these meetings.  

After the Wars of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and even the Civil War, which ended with the United States possessing, except for China, the largest military on the planet, dismantling always occurred.  By the end of World War I, the United States had mobilized approximately 4.7 to 4.8 million military personnel. Of this total, about 4 million served in the US Army, while the remaining 800,000 served in the Navy, Marine Corps, and other military branches.  Just 15 years later, that number was fewer than 119,000.

Because the US could no longer rely on European powers such as Britain and France to maintain presences in regional hot spots, and with the advent of the Cold War, the US, to this day (2.1 million service members), maintains a large and robust military presence.  

After World War II, the isolationism that had persisted since the days of the Monroe Doctrine was no longer possible.  Like it or not, the Pax Americana was born.  

3. Industrial leadership of the late 1800s 

During the late 19th century, the United States transitioned from an agrarian society into the world’s leading industrial powerhouse. Driven by vast natural resources, explosive technological innovation, and mass-production capabilities, a booming national market emerged. However, rapid ascendance redefined the global economy but also sparked massive labor conflicts and fierce debates over corporate monopolies.  During this period, when the US achieved preeminence in the oil, steel, railroad industries, and in finance, ending with a higher GDP than the previous leader, Great Britain, a title held to this day.

It was this build-out that enabled the US in the 20th century to help win two world wars and defeat the soviets in the Cold War, and its legacy of economic leadership was born from this period.  

Politically, it is our Constitution that has led to American leadership.  Economically, it is capitalism, and that was permanently established in this age.    

2. Revolutionary War – Declaration and Washington

I am combining two very different events into one, using the Revolution as the catalyst for both.  

The Declaration of Independence states the principles on which our government and our identity as Americans are based. Unlike the other founding documents, the Declaration of Independence is not legally binding, but it is powerful. Abraham Lincoln called it “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.” It continues to inspire people around the world to fight for freedom and equality.

George Will called it the founding document, noting that it stated the inalienable rights that continue to define our nation.  

Eminent historian Gordon S. Wood views the Declaration of Independence as the radical foundation of American identity. He argues that the greatest power lies in its status as a “creedal document”—a set of universal ideals uniting a diverse people who share no common ethnicity. The Radicalism of Equality: Wood highlights the phrase “all men are created equal” as an explosive, transformative idea that rejected aristocratic, bloodline-based social structures in favor of environmental equality.

I may be including Washington and his appointment in 1775.  But both Washington’s appointment and the Declaration emanated from the Revolutionary movement, which pre-dated both.  And it was his role as General in Chief, successfully concluded in 1783 with peace, that made him the logical person to oversee the Constitutional Congress and become the first Chief Executive.

Then three aspects to his life, one a choice and the other two accidents, defined America’s permanent swerve away from Monarchy.  The first was his decision to leave office after two terms, establishing that, in fact, the presidency was an office, not a title held by a single person.  The second one was his death one year before the election of 1800, before he could change his mind and run again, or forces tried to recruit him. And finally, he had no son who surely would have been fated to try to pick up his mantle. Integrity and a little luck were the hallmarks of the father of our nation.  

1. The writing, the campaign, and the enactment of the Constitution

The US Constitution is the supreme law of the United States, establishing the federal government’s structure with three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) and defining the basic rights of citizens, outlined in a Preamble, seven Articles, and 27 Amendments, including the first ten known as the Bill of Rights. Drafted in 1787, it created a system of checks and balances and federalism, with power shared between the federal and state governments. 

This was the vision. But in the crucible of the real world, it has been the central document in the greatest single government ever conceived in history. Neither the Roman nor the British Constitutions were written down.  No government prior to 1787 had tried a Republic with a continental-sized nation.  No nation has successfully conducted. There have been 119 nationwide Congressional elections.  There have been 59 elections for the Chief Executive, resulting in 47 changes of power.  

Schoolchildren learn about the Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances. People often decry a government’s inability to get things done.  The point of the Constitution was to make getting things done hard.  Yuval Levin and his book American Covenant:

“The Constitution forces insular factions to forge coalitions with others and, thereby, to expand their sense of their own interests and priorities. It forces powerful officeholders to govern through negotiation and competition rather than through fiat and pronouncement, thereby aligning their ambitions with those of others. It forces Americans to acknowledge the equal rights of fellow citizens.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” – Federalist 51

Alexander Hamilton