Govt. vs. freedom requires balancing

Even though the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Continental Congress 250 years ago, Americans still argue over its most fundamental question: how much power should a central government hold over the states and the people?

After the 13 colonies broke free from British rule, they operated as a loose federation. Each individual colony made its own rules, printed its own money, and conducted trade as it saw fit. However, the new states quickly realized they could not survive alone and needed something more to handle self-defense, foreign relations, and interstate commerce.

The irony is that they—and we—tend to resist what they created. Our view of independence is that we all want total freedom until we need support. For example, the federal government stepped in five years ago to save local businesses through the multi-billion-dollar Paycheck Protection Program.

Similarly, citizens rely on FEMA for disaster assistance and Medicare for vital healthcare insurance—a program that supports more than 65 million Americans. The federal government even stabilizes our food supply — between 1995 and 2024, for instance, Worcester County farmers received $57 million in subsidies to protect them from wild crop price fluctuations.

Demanding less government intervention is almost instinctive, but it is often simplistic and hypocritical given how frequently we look to federal agencies in difficult times.

The fact is, between 1776 and the arrival of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the founders built a complicated, imperfect system. Its purpose was to hold a fragile nation together by striking a delicate balance between tyranny and anarchy.

On this July 4, we should remember that our job, like that of every generation before us, is to maintain that wobbly balance. As Benjamin Franklin famously warned in 1787 when asked if the convention delegates had created a republic or a monarchy: “A republic … if you can keep it.”