Victor Davis Hanson: On July 4, I am reminded that we are the sum of 235 years of hundreds of millions of prior lives, tragedies, and hopes that collectively gave us something far better than anything else in man‘s experience, past or present: a gift that nonetheless was not open-ended, but demands of us, the fortunate, that we pass on to the next generation a country even better than the wonderful one we were so lucky to inherit.

Orson Scott Card: On July 4, we celebrate the part of America we know best. All our relatives who live close by come to our back yard for a barbecue. We have flag decorations (including one made from little paper flags stuck into an inverted paper cup that dates back to when my wife was a kid at her family‘s cabin on the July 4). But that‘s what America is: the place where the people we know best and love most live in freedom together.

Larry Schweikart: July 4 to me is the embodiment of American exceptionalism — land availability, Christian religious heritage, free-market principles, and political liberty drawn from common law. These four factors are found nowhere else on planet earth. Some are found in multiple places, and rarely, three of the four exist in some states. But even England lacked land availability, and most free nations aside from England and Germany have no tradition of common law. The Fourth brought into being a one-of-a-kind nation, and there is little on the horizon to suggest it can, or will, ever again be duplicated.

Robert Davi: This day is call’d Independence Day
We who by the Grace of God are born here or have
chosen to migrate here must stand a tip-toe to Our Founders.
Whose dreams, sweat, struggles, discussions, arguments, and Blood
are the foundation for this “shining city on a hill.” Men whose names must be honored and remain familiar in our mouths — Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, Franklin, Solomon and others who should along with the
display of fireworks, music, parades, barbeques, bells and flowing cups be freshly
rememb’red. This day shall the good man teach his son or daughter  –
they must uphold the promise and protection of this Great Nation, UNDER GOD.

Charlotte Allen: The fireworks on the National Mall! I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., for 26 years, and on every Fourth except for a handful when I’ve been out of town, that lovely nighttime show of stripes and stars of blazing colored light, perhaps the most spectacular of its kind in the nation, has been the capstone of the holiday for me. When I arrived in Washington, Ronald Reagan was celebrating morning in America, and now it’s the dismal, seemingly endless dog-afternoon of the third year of the Obama recession and the president’s doomed, purposeless wars. But the fireworks, the meticulous handiwork of the U.S. Park Service, never disappoints: glorious, triumphant, lighting the sky with showers of patriotic pride. They bespeak a resilient America that I hope and pray will survive this dreadful time as it has survived others.