This Saturday, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. At the center of the celebration this year, President Donald Trump, 45th then 47th successor to George Washington, who for his detractors threatens American democracy with his populist project, his taste for profit and his unpredictability…
But for the time of this article, let’s focus on the positive aspects of what the American model has brought to the world since 1776. Written largely by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence sets out revolutionary principles for the time. It affirms the existence of inalienable and universal human rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The turning point of the Constitution of 1787
Likewise, it posits the existence of a social contract between people and their governments. When the latter infringe on these fundamental rights, citizens have the right, even the duty, to revolt. It was because King George III mistreated the settlers of the thirteen colonies that the latter declared themselves independent. They will emancipate themselves from the metropolis at the end of a war of liberation lasting several years (in which France took a decisive part).
It was with the Constitution of 1787 that the American institutional system was then put in place. The United States will be a republic, with an elected president and institutions whose interactions and respective prerogatives obey the principle of the separation of powers (or checks and balances).
The goal is to ensure the freedom, prosperity and happiness of all citizens. The bill of rights was added in the form of ten amendments ratified in 1791. They guarantee individual freedoms (freedom of worship, expression, assembly), the right to bear arms, the supervision of judicial powers, and guarantee the rights of the federated states in relation to the federal government.
The founding fathers thus implemented a political system inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, a liberal democracy whose remarkable aspect is that it has functioned without interruption until today. This project will influence the whole world, starting with the French revolutionaries of 1789.
American soft power
As early as 1786, in On the Influence of the American Revolution on Europe, Condorcet presented the events across the Atlantic as a model to follow. American soft power is on the move, before the term even exists. It will be even more so from the 20th century, when the United States, having become a great power, stood up against totalitarianism then communism, striving to spread democracy, human rights and the market economy.
However, this model is very imperfect. Native Americans dispossessed of their land, African-Americans reduced to slavery, women confined to secondary roles…: all were excluded from political life for a long time. Likewise, if the American presence in the world displays virtuous intentions, these are not always realized. Should we see this dissonance as hypocrisy or impotence? How should the American democratic project be evaluated?
Two steps forward, one step back
The first element of the answer lies in the fact that the founding fathers never claimed the perfection of their model. On the contrary, George Washington speaks of the young republic as a “great experiment”.
The expression will be taken up by Tocqueville: American democracy is an ongoing experiment, always evolving. The political scientist EJ Dionne, columnist for the New York Times, today evokes a logic of “two steps forward, one step back” to explain the political and moral developments of the country.
No subject better illustrates this mode of non-linear evolution than the condition of African-Americans. The constituents of 1787 had to resolve to a compromise on the question of slavery. This was the condition for the Southern colonies to agree to enter the Union.
But the abolitionist movements gained momentum and, at the end of a fratricidal war between 1860 and 1865, obtained the release of 4 million people. The segregation put in place in the 1880s would itself be overturned with the powerful civil rights movement in the 1960s.
A similar ambivalence is emerging in foreign policy. We must deplore very unethical interference in Latin America, from the conquests and annexations of the 1890s to the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas in January 2026, including support for the coup d’état in Chile in 1973.
A particularly active civil society
However, we must also celebrate a Marshall Plan which generously finances the reconstruction of countries destroyed by war, both allies and former enemies, in order to ensure their return to political democracy and economic prosperity.
What makes these back and forths between virtue and darkness possible – and, perhaps, a positive evolution of the American model in the long term – is the capacity of the political system to correct itself over time. Presidents and their administrations must answer for their choices and their actions. American citizens have the freedom of speech to criticize them; the right to vote to obtain regular alternations; as well as independent courts to censor, where appropriate, illegal or unconstitutional decisions.
Added to this is a particularly active civil society, capable of putting forward its demands and effectively influencing public debate.
These mechanisms of responsibility and counter-power are at the very heart of the American system. They do not prevent errors or injustices, but they offer the means to denounce them, correct them and, sometimes, overcome them. This is why optimists believe that the Trumpist moment that the country is going through today will also eventually be overcome.
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