Floor SpeechCeremonial2026-06-18

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026

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Context

On 2026-06-18, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) delivered a floor speech titled "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026" in the Senate.

Full Text

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2917-S2920] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026 Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, on July 4, 1776, 56 men crossed a line from which there was no return. These men knew the King they defied. They knew the empire would come for them. They knew the prisons that could hold them and the gallows that could take them. They had wives, children, homes, names, property, and honor. They signed anyway. They made a bold declaration to the world that had never been made before. It was, in fact, revolutionary. Our rights come from God. Government rests on consent. Citizens are not subjects. America is a nation. Those truths made America possible, and every generation that inherits America must decide whether or not those truths still command it. That is why I rise today in support of repassing the Declaration of Independence. The declaration is America's birth certificate. It is the first great act of an American union. It is the character of a free people. It is the public oath by which 13 Colonies became one American nation. It presupposes America is one people, and that matters because a people is more than a population. A people has memory. A people has duties. A people receives an inheritance and decides whether to defend it. The declaration is the public oath of a people who knew it had received an inheritance and would have to defend it. It is an oath of liberty under God. It is an oath of self-government under law. It is an oath of one people bound across generations, accountable to the Creator, responsible for the Republic, and charged to carry freedom forward. That oath still binds us. That errand has not expired. America's deepest crisis is a loss of memory. We do not lack experts; we lack fathers. We do not lack managers; we lack patriots. We do not need more people trained to administer decline. We need citizens formed to love and defend the good. The Constitution can divide power. It cannot supply virtue. That is why the declaration still matters. It tells every King, every court, every Agency, every President, every Congress, and every officeholder the same exact thing: Your power is borrowed. Your authority is limited. Your office exists to serve a people whose rights you did not create and cannot erase. A Congress that forgets the declaration forgets why Congress has power at all. The truths of the declaration entered history through flesh-and-blood men--men with names, men with families, men with property, reputations, and everything to lose. Adams saw the break before others would name it. Jefferson gave cause its words. Franklin faced danger with wisdom and wit. Hancock signed with a boldness that made caution look small. They were men in danger. They acted when delay would have been easy. They acted when fear could have been dressed up as prudence. They acted because the hour had arrived. Heroes see that line. Then they cross it. The first American heroes chose sacred honor over safe submission. They acted when the safe men counseled waiting. Heroes do not wait for permission from the powerful. Heroes do not ask whether courage is fashionable. Heroes do not poll cowardice before obeying duty. Liberty was won by men who risked everything. America was born from courage, conviction, duty, and faith in almighty God. The oldest lie in politics says that the many exist for the few. The declaration broke that lie. Once they signed, the words had to travel. A declaration made in the name of people had to reach the people. Then the declaration moved. Copies went out on a rider. They entered churches, courthouses, taverns, army camps, town squares, and homes. The declaration belonged to the people before it belonged to the archives. Americans had to hear they were free. They had to hear what freedom would require. One of those copies reached George Washington in New York, where he was preparing to face the empire the signers had defied. He had it read aloud to the army. His men already knew what they were fighting for. They had left their farms, their shops, their families, and their homes because they knew liberty was worth the cost. But now Congress has spoken for the country. Now their cause had been declared before the world. The British were coming. The army was raw, exposed, and outmatched. So Washington put the words before his men. He let them hear from the voice of their own Congress that they were no longer fighting for grievances; they were fighting for a nation of their own. At Valley Forge, men endured because liberty demanded endurance. They endured because their children deserved more than submission. They [[Page S2918]] endured because they knew a free people could survive if courage did not fail. Patrick Henry said it best when he gave his countrymen the choice every free people eventually faces: [G]ive me liberty, or give me death! The same fire moved beyond the army. It entered the life of the people. It traveled wherever Americans carried the sense and cause of liberty. It moved from hand to hand, from town to town, from father to son, from battlefield to courthouse, from pulpit to schoolhouse. Then it moved west. As the American people moved west, the Declaration moved with them. It moved into river towns, frontier trails, farms, churches, courthouses, and homes. I come from the great State of Missouri. In Missouri, we know the Declaration did not stay on the Atlantic coast. It moved through St. Louis and Jefferson City. It moved with Lewis and Clark. It moved with Daniel Boone and the frontier families who cut homes out of the wilderness. It moved with farmers and soldiers and preachers, rivermen, mothers, fathers, shopkeepers, builders, and pioneers. It inspired the naming of Missouri towns like Liberty, Independence, and Defiance. Missouri is what the Declaration looks like when it walks west and builds a country. America was made by people like that, a nation that builds, a nation that discovers, a nation that dares, a nation that refuses to live on its knees. Our ancestors did not fight, bleed, freeze, build, plant, sail, preach, settle, invent, and die so their descendants could be taught to apologize for existing. That inheritance now rests in our hands, and too many powerful voices in this country teach the next generation to receive it with suspicion instead of gratitude. We are done being ashamed of America. We love our country. We honor the men that built it. We give thanks for the inheritance they placed in our hands, and we intend to keep it. America 250 is a time to remember that inheritance and renew national pride. We can see the damage in the numbers. A generation ago, American pride was nearly universal. After 9/11, more than 90 percent of Americans said they were proud to be an American. Today, Gallup puts that number at 58 percent. PRRI puts it at 51 percent. On the left, the collapse is even sharper. Gallup found that only 36 percent of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be an American. I take no pleasure in saying that. PRRI puts Democrat pride at 31 percent. Only 28 percent of Democrats say they are proud of America's 250-year history. Only 11 percent say America is the greatest country in the world. Only 27 percent plan to display the American flag this Fourth of July. That is a national forgetting made visible. Elite culture gives that damage a vocabulary. A recent essay in the New Yorker Magazine set out to answer the question: Is national pride worth trying to salvage? It asks: Is patriotism problematic? The most revealing line in that essay is its claim that patriotic education means learning to forget. No serious country--no serious country--can survive that kind of contempt for gratitude. America does not need historical amnesia; America needs honest memory, memory of sin and sacrifice, failure in correction, courage in renewal, fathers and sons, graves and glory, memories strong enough to produce citizens. That phrase reveals the deeper fight. A fight over patriotism is a fight over memory. Memory matters. A people that forget its heroes will soon be ruled by men who despise them. A nation that sneers at its fathers will leave its children orphans. A republic that mocks sacrifice will produce citizens unworthy of freedom. The dead, the living, and the unborn are joined in one chain of obligation; we receive before we create, we owe before we choose, we hand down what we did not make. That is why citizenship is not just paperwork. That is why borders matter. That is why children matter. That is why memory matters. That is why the Declaration matters. Memory carries authority with it. A people that remembers its inheritance also remembers its right to govern. The Declaration says the people are sovereign; no king, no queen, the people. The modern regime says the people are a problem to be managed. That is the fight. A great nation needs men who can say what is true. The old founding is enough. The question is whether we are enough for it. Calvin Coolidge gave that truth its anniversary form 100 years ago. He said: If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are all endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. And that is final. No real progress moves beyond those truths. Every movement away from them leads us backwards. Coolidge said that in America's 150th. We stand at the threshold of her 250th. America 250 cannot become a fireworks show arranged by people embarrassed by their country. A nation cannot celebrate its birthday while forgetting why it was born in the first place. America 250 should tell the country one thing: The founding was good, the Declaration is true, and the American people still

Referenced legislation: S4828, S4828

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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026 Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S2917-S2920] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE REAFFIRMATION ACT OF 2026 Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, on July 4, 1776, 56 men crossed a line from which there was no return. These men knew the King they defied. They knew the empire would come for them. They knew the prisons that could hold them and the gallows that could take them. They had wives, children, homes, names, property, and honor. They signed anyway. They made a bold declaration to the world that had never been made before. It was, in fact, revolutionary. Our rights come from God. Government rests on consent. Citizens are not subjects. America is a nation. Those truths made America possible, and every generation that inherits America must decide whether or not those truths still command it. That is why I rise today in support of repassing the Declaration of Independence. The declaration is America's birth certificate. It is the first great act of an American union. It is the character of a free people. It is the public oath by which 13 Colonies became one American nation. It presupposes America is one people, and that matters because a people is more than a population. A people has memory. A people has duties. A people receives an inheritance and decides whether to defend it. The declaration is the public oath of a people who knew it had received an inheritance and would have to defend it. It is an oath of liberty under God. It is an oath of self-government under law. It is an oath of one people bound across generations, accountable to the Creator, responsible for the Republic, and charged to carry freedom forward. That oath still binds us. That errand has not expired. America's deepest crisis is a loss of memory. We do not lack experts; we lack fathers. We do not lack managers; we lack patriots. We do not need more people trained to administer decline. We need citizens formed to love and defend the good. The Constitution can divide power. It cannot supply virtue. That is why the declaration still matters. It tells every King, every court, every Agency, every President, every Congress, and every officeholder the same exact thing: Your power is borrowed. Your authority is limited. Your office exists to serve a people whose rights you did not create and cannot erase. A Congress that forgets the declaration forgets why Congress has power at all. The truths of the declaration entered history through flesh-and-blood men--men with names, men with families, men with property, reputations, and everything to lose. Adams saw the break before others would name it. Jefferson gave cause its words. Franklin faced danger with wisdom and wit. Hancock signed with a boldness that made caution look small. They were men in danger. They acted when delay would have been easy. They acted when fear could have been dressed up as prudence. They acted because the hour had arrived. Heroes see that line. Then they cross it. The first American heroes chose sacred honor over safe submission. They acted when the safe men counseled waiting. Heroes do not wait for permission from the powerful. Heroes do not ask whether courage is fashionable. Heroes do not poll cowardice before obeying duty. Liberty was won by men who risked everything. America was born from courage, conviction, duty, and faith in almighty God. The oldest lie in politics says that the many exist for the few. The declaration broke that lie. Once they signed, the words had to travel. A declaration made in the name of people had to reach the people. Then the declaration moved. Copies went out on a rider. They entered churches, courthouses, taverns, army camps, town squares, and homes. The declaration belonged to the people before it belonged to the archives. Americans had to hear they were free. They had to hear what freedom would require. One of those copies reached George Washington in New York, where he was preparing to face the empire the signers had defied. He had it read aloud to the army. His men already knew what they were fighting for. They had left their farms, their shops, their families, and their homes because they knew liberty was worth the cost. But now Congress has spoken for the country. Now their cause had been declared before the world. The British were coming. The army was raw, exposed, and outmatched. So Washington put the words before his men. He let them hear from the voice of their own Congress that they were no longer fighting for grievances; they were fighting for a nation of their own. At Valley Forge, men endured because liberty demanded endurance. They endured because their children deserved more than submission. They [[Page S2918]] endured because they knew a free people could survive if courage did not fail. Patrick Henry said it best when he gave his countrymen the choice every free people eventually faces: [G]ive me liberty, or give me death! The same fire moved beyond the army. It entered the life of the people. It traveled wherever Americans carried the sense and cause of liberty. It moved from hand to hand, from town to town, from father to son, from battlefield to courthouse, from pulpit to schoolhouse. Then it moved west. As the American people moved west, the Declaration moved with them. It moved into river towns, frontier trails, farms, churches, courthouses, and homes. I come from the great State of Missouri. In Missouri, we know the Declaration did not stay on the Atlantic coast. It moved through St. Louis and Jefferson City. It moved with Lewis and Clark. It moved with Daniel Boone and the frontier families who cut homes out of the wilderness. It moved with farmers and soldiers and preachers, rivermen, mothers, fathers, shopkeepers, builders, and pioneers. It inspired the naming of Missouri towns like Liberty, Independence, and Defiance. Missouri is what the Declaration looks like when it walks west and builds a country. America was made by people like that, a nation that builds, a nation that discovers, a nation that dares, a nation that refuses to live on its knees. Our ancestors did not fight, bleed, freeze, build, plant, sail, preach, settle, invent, and die so their descendants could be taught to apologize for existing. That inheritance now rests in our hands, and too many powerful voices in this country teach the next generation to receive it with suspicion instead of gratitude. We are done being ashamed of America. We love our country. We honor the men that built it. We give thanks for the inheritance they placed in our hands, and we intend to keep it. America 250 is a time to remember that inheritance and renew national pride. We can see the damage in the numbers. A generation ago, American pride was nearly universal. After 9/11, more than 90 percent of Americans said they were proud to be an American. Today, Gallup puts that number at 58 percent. PRRI puts it at 51 percent. On the left, the collapse is even sharper. Gallup found that only 36 percent of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be an American. I take no pleasure in saying that. PRRI puts Democrat pride at 31 percent. Only 28 percent of Democrats say they are proud of America's 250-year history. Only 11 percent say America is the greatest country in the world. Only 27 percent plan to display the American flag this Fourth of July. That is a national forgetting made visible. Elite culture gives that damage a vocabulary. A recent essay in the New Yorker Magazine set out to answer the question: Is national pride worth trying to salvage? It asks: Is patriotism problematic? The most revealing line in that essay is its claim that patriotic education means learning to forget. No serious country--no serious country--can survive that kind of contempt for gratitude. America does not need historical amnesia; America needs honest memory, memory of sin and sacrifice, failure in correction, courage in renewal, fathers and sons, graves and glory, memories strong enough to produce citizens. That phrase reveals the deeper fight. A fight over patriotism is a fight over memory. Memory matters. A people that forget its heroes will soon be ruled by men who despise them. A nation that sneers at its fathers will leave its children orphans. A republic that mocks sacrifice will produce citizens unworthy of freedom. The dead, the living, and the unborn are joined in one chain of obligation; we receive before we create, we owe before we choose, we hand down what we did not make. That is why citizenship is not just paperwork. That is why borders matter. That is why children matter. That is why memory matters. That is why the Declaration matters. Memory carries authority with it. A people that remembers its inheritance also remembers its right to govern. The Declaration says the people are sovereign; no king, no queen, the people. The modern regime says the people are a problem to be managed. That is the fight. A great nation needs men who can say what is true. The old founding is enough. The question is whether we are enough for it. Calvin Coolidge gave that truth its anniversary form 100 years ago. He said: If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are all endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. And that is final. No real progress moves beyond those truths. Every movement away from them leads us backwards. Coolidge said that in America's 150th. We stand at the threshold of her 250th. America 250 cannot become a fireworks show arranged by people embarrassed by their country. A nation cannot celebrate its birthday while forgetting why it was born in the first place. America 250 should tell the country one thing: The founding was good, the Declaration is true, and the American people still Referenced legislation: S4828, S4828