The Washington Examiner observes, on the occasion of America's 250th birthday, that the nation was 'for the first time in history' founded on the idea that humans possess inalienable rights and that government's purpose is to protect them. I did not write those words in 1776 — that particular pen belonged to my younger colleague from Virginia — but I signed my name beneath them, and I have never regretted the ink.

What the Examiner's lead calls 'radical' was, to us, simply the conclusion of careful reasoning applied to the plain facts of human experience. Every person who works a trade, keeps accounts, and pays a tax understands, without a philosophy lecture, that authority which cannot be questioned will eventually take more than it is owed. The inalienable-rights argument is, at bottom, a practical argument: it limits the government's ability to pick the pocket of the citizen under cover of law.

But a founding idea is only as durable as the institutions built to carry it. I spent a long life worrying about institutions — the post, the lending library, the fire company, the colonial paper-currency law. Every one of them was, in miniature, an answer to the question: how do we make the principle walk on its own legs? An anniversary is a pleasant thing; a working institution is a better one.

I confess I am wary of anniversaries that congratulate the dead and thereby excuse the living. The radical idea the Examiner invokes — that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed — carries an implied obligation: the governed must actually participate, must inform themselves, must hold their representatives to account. A republic is not a gift handed down; it is a habit practiced daily. I am given to understand (inference, not recollection) that civic participation, trust in public institutions, and basic literacy about the workings of government have all declined in recent decades. If so, the birthday cake may be larger than ever and the candles fewer.

Here, then, is the counsel I would offer any working person on this anniversary: treat self-government the way you treat a savings account. A small deposit made regularly — reading a credible newspaper, attending a town meeting, understanding what your representative actually voted for — compounds over time into something your children can draw on. Neglect it, and you will find, as with any account left untended, that others have been making withdrawals in your name.

The Founders' wager was not that free people would always choose wisely. It was that free people, informed and engaged, would choose better than a court or a crown choosing for them. Two hundred and fifty years is long enough to know the bet is still live — and still ours to win or lose.