It won’t be long before Americans all across the country are celebrating our great national birthday. And we won’t do so quietly. “It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty,” John Adams, our second president, wrote of July 4. “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.” Indeed it should. I also frequently urge people to reread our founding charter, the Declaration of Independence, which...