For the 250th anniversary of Independence, this is a collection of essays aimed at exploring America’s revolutionary values, their evolution through our history and their relevance to our contemporary politics. The words of some of our great leaders, thinkers and orators explicate these values. Beginning with a close reading of the Declaration of Independence, the challenge is to understand its values — of our equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — in today’s vexed politics. The essays move to the framing of the Constitution and the nation’s compromises with slavery, the tragic history of Indigenous Americans, our troubled efforts at immigration and treatment of immigrants, through the Progressive era and the civil rights revolution of the post-war period, and ending with what to make of todays’s governance, so lacking in civic virtue. This is an effort to challenge, disturb and purposely upset. One of America’s greatest enduring strengths is, or ought to be, found in its constitutional commitment to freedom of thought and expression. It undergirds the capacity for the self critique necessary for ensuring liberty, equality and justice. There have been many times in our history when challenging, disturbing and upsetting our expectations and comfort was necessary. This is one of those times.