If you could choose one word to describe the very best of the United States this Independence Day, what would it be? The one I’ve been thinking about recently is “together.”

America has always been a fractious place. The Founders disagreed deeply on many things, from states rights to slavery, but they knew there would only be an America if there was first a “together” to build from. The presidency of Abraham Lincoln, universally seen as the greatest in the nation’s history, was a hymn to “together” in the most profound and difficult ways imaginable. Lincoln gave his life for it. 

The civil rights activists – who I think of as America’s “Second Founders” – based their nonviolent protest on an unshakable sense of “together.” Their absolute refusal to drop their standard of love for their enemies, even when beaten or killed, is one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of power and moral force in world history.

At no time was “together” easy. Yet at every turn, it was essential. As Lincoln knew so well, the better angels of our nature are not naive idealism, but rather the only reliable way for free societies to thrive. In that way, “together” is not something America can opt out of, but rather the recurring test of the nation’s success and value to the world.