(Daily Signal)—On June 6, 1876, as the United States approached its centennial anniversary, President Ulysses S. Grant addressed the youth of America. “My advice … no matter their denomination,” is to hold fast to faith, to not merely know one’s religious precepts, but to live them.
By Grant’s counsel, in this would be the flourishing of the American nation. He concluded with a proverb—“Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people”—a verse also inscribed in Robert Muir’s painting “Peace and War” in the West Point chapel, which Grant no doubt contemplated as a student.
These words were more than a ceremonial message from a sitting president and former Civil War general. They were a warning, a lesson, and a charge to the next generation: What we inherit can be lost—unless we have the character to keep it.
Grant’s letter was first published in Sunday School Times, but due to its relevance and impact for all Americans, it also appeared in The New York Timesa few days later—and again nine years later on the front page.
At the heart of the eighteenth president’s 1876 lesson is this: a nation’s strength is not ultimately measured by its wealth, weapons, or political victories, but by the values its citizens are willing to preserve, even when doing so becomes unpopular. Values are the measure of a nation’s enduring worth. That is why President Grant’s message matters today—especially as religious liberty becomes increasingly contested in public life.
When Grant wrote to America’s youth, he was speaking to citizens who would shape the next century. The Civil War had ended, but the nation still bore deep scars. Americans were trying to rebuild not only cities and economies, but unity itself—the very idea of America. The question was whether the country would be held together by more than lines on a map, but whether it could be held together by principle.
Grant’s letter recognized that the survival of American freedom would depend on whether young Americans embraced responsibility and character, not just rights.
That same reality confronts us today, and Grant’s challenge still rings true for all citizens as the U.S. nears its 250th Anniversary in July 2026.
The freedoms secured by the Constitution—including the free exercise of religion—do not survive by accident. They survive only when citizens mutually recognize that liberty is not guaranteed, but that it must be understood, cherished, and protected. This is how we maintain the America we know and love.
However, the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment—religious liberty—is often treated today as a niche political cause, relevant only to certain voters or certain faith traditions. But this is wrong. Religious liberty is a foundational American promise: No government has the authority to dictate what a person must believe, how he or she must worship, or what convictions he or she must abandon in order to participate in public life. Quite the contrary. Each citizen has the individual right to embrace the faith—or no faith at all—by his or her own choosing, without fear of being silenced or punished.
At least, that is what the Founders intended. Sadly, true freedom of religion (an important foundation of principle that Grant spoke of) has not been the reality for many American citizens shunned, bullied, and punished for their faith by government officials or employers who seem to have forgotten what freedom really means.
The First Amendment did not invent religious liberty. Rather, it recognizes a foundational truth that the Founders already knew: Conscience is not the property of the state, and it must be tenaciously protected. Otherwise, America is doomed to repeat the folly of other nations in history.
Freedom of religion matters. Principle matters. It has mattered for 250 years, and it will matter for another 250 years if we want to see an America that we recognize and are proud of for generations to come.
The Founders’ recognition of religious liberty was a declaration that the state is limited, that the government, military, schools, or city councils cannot reach into the human soul and command a specific allegiance. That limit is one of the greatest protections a people can ever possess.
The wisdom of the Founding Fathers was anchored in a sober view of human nature and a profound trust that true liberty requires something beyond mankind’s own power. Their understanding of rights was inseparable from the conviction that rights come from God, not government, meaning the government’s role is not to grant liberty, but to protect it.
So, as America nears its 250th anniversary this July, Grant’s challenge of faith and freedom still remains just as strong as it did at the centennial: What we inherit can be lost, unless we have the character to keep it.
May we have the character to stand on principle and protect the First Freedom, freedom of religion, for that will determine where America stands at the next centennial.
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