The Civitas 250 Event

​Join the Civitas Institute at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C., for a panel discussion on our latest book, The Civitas Collection 250. Bringing together twenty-five leading scholars, the volume explores the enduring meaning of the Declaration of Independence on its 250th anniversary—from the nation’s founding principles to the ongoing responsibilities of democratic life.

​The program will feature panelists John Yoo, Bill McClay, Hadley Arkes, Richard Samuelson, and Richard Reinsch.

​A reception will immediately follow the discussion.

​More About the Book

​On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved a document that would change the world. Drawing on natural rights, moral philosophy, natural and biblical theology, and classical virtue, the Declaration of Independence did not merely announce a political separation—it established the principles upon which a new republic would stand or fall.

​As America marks the 250th anniversary of that founding act, The Civitas Collection 250 brings together 25 of the nation's leading scholars to examine the Declaration in depth. These essays resist the temptation to flatten the founding into a simple story. They probe what the Declaration meant in 1776, what it meant to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., and what it demands of us now—on questions of liberty and equality, self-government, executive power, religion, race, and the persistent effort to diminish what the founders established.

​A large majority of contributors teach in the newly established centers and schools of civic thought and education that now inhabit major universities across the country, deepening public instruction for students, ensuring that a richer set of ideas circulates on campus, and inevitably improving higher education in America. This volume will contribute to those efforts. The Civitas Institute is grateful to all who have skillfully shaped this collection of essays.