A Missouri lawmaker took to the Senate floor Thursday and successfully passed a measure reaffirming the Declaration of Independence ahead of the country’s 250th birthday.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, introduced the measure to remind the American people of the nation’s founding principles and push back against declining national pride.
“On July 4, 1776, 56 men crossed a line from which there was no retreat,” Schmitt said during his floor remarks. “They made a bold declaration to the world that had never been made before. It was, in fact, revolutionary.”
Schmitt emphasized Missouri’s deep connection to the historic document, noting the spirit of liberty traveled west alongside pioneers and early settlers.
“In Missouri, we know the Declaration did not stay on the Atlantic coast,” Schmitt said.
He highlighted how the document moved through St. Louis and Jefferson City with historical figures such as Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark and frontier families. The legacy remains embedded in the state’s geography today.
“It inspired the naming of Missouri towns like Liberty, Independence and Defiance,” Schmitt said. “Missouri is what the Declaration looks like when it walks west and builds a country.”
The senator voiced concern over polling data showing a sharp decline in patriotism, describing the trend as a “national forgetting made visible.”
Schmitt cited data from Gallup showing only 58% of Americans feel proud of their country, while a PRRI study put the number at 51%.
He noted the drop is even sharper among Democrats, pointing to Gallup findings showing only 36% express extreme or high pride in being American.
Schmitt criticized modern elite culture for treating patriotism as problematic and teaching younger generations to view their inheritance with suspicion.
“America does not need historical amnesia,” Schmitt said. “America needs honest memory – memory of sin and sacrifice, failure and correction, courage and renewal, fathers and sons, graves and glory – memory strong enough to produce citizens.”
“Our ancestors did not fight, bleed, freeze, build, plant, sail, preach, settle, invent and die, so their descendants could be taught to apologize for existing. That inheritance now rests in our hands … we are done being ashamed of America,” Schmitt said.
The measure passed without objection, ensuring the country’s founding text is spoken again from the center of government as the nation’s 2026 semiquincentennial approaches.
