Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch told National Review that being American is defined by a shared creed rooted in the Declaration’s ideals, not by race or religion, and he warned that those ideals can be lost if we stop teaching the Founders’ stories, civic virtues, and the sacrifices that built the republic.
Neil Gorsuch reminded readers that American identity rests on a set of ideas that have guided this nation since its founding. He argued that what binds Americans is a belief in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and in each person’s right to pursue those things. That claim pushes back on identity politics by putting the national narrative back into ideas and commitments.
Gorsuch pressed that younger generations often assume those freedoms are inevitable, when in fact they are rare across history and around the world. He warned that treating liberty as a given risks turning the United States into just another country that takes its freedoms for granted. Preserving those liberties, he said, depends on passing on the stories and lessons that explain how fragile they really are.
He asked a simple, practical question about teaching civic faith: “How do you get somebody hooked on an idea?” Justice Gorsuch asked. “I think facts and figures, you know, all right, there are 13 percent, 18 percent, whatever, kind of don’t speak to us the way stories do. That’s how we relate to one another. I want to know your story, you want to know mine, right? And that’s how we learn, really. And we figure if you’re going to get interested in the Stamp Act, right? And if you’re going to get interested in the Articles of Confederation, might be because of the people behind them. And the 56 signers were incredibly, incredibly interesting people. And their stories are moving.”
We forget that the revolution was eight bloody long years. A third of the signers had their homes destroyed. Many of them were imprisoned. Some of their wives were imprisoned. Some of their children were imprisoned. And many of them gave their fortunes to the revolution and died poor as a result of it. So telling those stories of courage and sacrifice, we hope might inspire a few young minds and make them realize the Declaration’s three big ideas are not inevitable. They were not inevitable. And their preservation is not inevitable. And that the torch passes to each generation.
We’re a creedal nation. What unites us is not a religion, it’s not a race, it’s a belief in those three ideals.That’s our mission statement as a country. And if people don’t get inspired to learn about them and believe in them, well, the baton drops.
Gorsuch pointed to the Founders’ sacrifices as the most persuasive curriculum for patriotism, saying stories move people more than statistics. He argued that storytelling creates personal ties to history, making abstract principles real for young Americans. That approach treats citizenship as learned and earned, not as a default.
He also drew a line from the Founders to later leaders who urged civic education as central to keeping a republic healthy. “It was also George Washington’s speech toward the end of his administration, where he was advocating for a national university to teach civics and virtues,” Justice Gorsuch added. “And he wasn’t afraid to talk about virtues that are necessary to maintain a republic. And that is something that all of the founders agreed on. I mean, Jefferson said, you know, if you expect a country to remain free and ignorant, well, you want something that’s never been and never will be.”
Those reminders are uncomfortable for a generation steeped in identity-first politics, because learning shared history requires humility and a sense of duty. Gorsuch suggested that without an emphasis on civic virtues, the sense of national mission frays. When people prioritize tribe over idea, the republic suffers because the common language of rights and duties gets lost.
The justice warned that civic literacy and virtue are not neutral topics; they shape how people vote and what they expect from government. Teaching the Founders’ stories isn’t nostalgia, he said, it’s a defense strategy for liberty. Voters who understand the Constitution are likelier to protect it, rather than treating it as a bargaining chip in partisan fights.
That perspective is political in a plain way: civic education strengthens institutions and keeps political energy focused on preserving liberty. Gorsuch’s remedy is practical and cultural—revive the stories, revive civic teaching, and insist that institutions pass that torch. He frames citizenship as an active task, one that each generation must learn and perform.
In Gorsuch’s view, the American experiment runs on belief and memory. Letting those fade invites the very politics that reduce citizens to factions instead of free people bound by shared principles. The remedy he offers is simple and direct: teach the history, tell the stories, and refuse to treat freedom as inevitable.
Above all, his words underscore a conservative argument about the republic: strong civic knowledge and shared ideals keep liberty alive. Without those pillars, the choices people make at the ballot box will reflect ignorance rather than stewardship. Gorsuch’s intervention is a call to arms for teaching, storytelling, and deliberate civic formation.
