Opinion: Carrying the lantern forward — celebrating America at 250 in Utah

Feb. 12 marked the 217th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Also on that day, the annual We the People competition for Utah high schoolers was held. Created by the Center for Civic Education and hosted by the Civic Thought & Leadership Initiative of UVU’s Center for Constitutional Studies, dozens of students gathered to display their constitutional learning in the format of mock congressional debates.

The event also kicked off the Civic Thought & Leadership Initiative’s (CTLI) America at 250 efforts. On July 4, 2026, the United States of America will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. Partnering with America250-Utah, CTLI will honor this anniversary through a variety of efforts.

First, a release of video-based master classes on the Declaration. A five-part series, each 15-minute episode will focus on specific ideas or pieces of history that animate the Declaration of Independence and show why it is still vital today.

Second, CTLI offers a resource library for families and teachers, culling primary sources on the Declaration and its heritage. Original documents are paired with historical insights, commentary and questions to consider at home and in the classroom.

Finally, Utah Together: Reading 1776 encourages Utahns to read David McCullough’s “1776,” tracing the gripping, human story of those who marched with General Washington in the tumultuous year of the Declaration.

Such inspiration was also promoted in the Feb. 12 event’s keynote address by Michelle Oldroyd, director of professional education, outreach and external relations for the Utah State Bar.

Oldroyd grew up near Washington, D.C., where, in the evenings, she recalled often seeing a candle lantern in a window. But it was only after watching Ken Burns’ recent documentary, “The American Revolution,” that she intuited a deeper meaning in the light.

At the time of the Revolution, American patriots often put lanterns in their windows to signal their solidarity with the cause of independence. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” lanterns were also code: “One, if by land, and two, if by sea.” Those lights illuminated a sense of unity and common purpose and principles, Oldroyd explained.

Americans needed to see this unity, Oldroyd said. In pre-Revolutionary America, we came from different countries, spoke different languages, had different traditions and honored different religions. We hadn’t established our common name yet, and the notions of being “American” were still being shaped. Oldroyd noted that “we were just starting to see the golden threads between us,” but these fibers were new — and fragile.

Those threads were also recognized by Abraham Lincoln in his 1858 “Electric Cord” speech, where he suggested the Declaration “links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together,” whether or not their ancestors had fought in the Revolution or immigrated to the young country.

Carrying the lantern farther forward in his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln noted that our independence was founded on the idea of liberty and equality, and it would be fidelity to the rule of law and the value of compromise that would keep this country celebrating until America250 and beyond.

Lincoln again “picked up the lantern of history,” said Oldroyd, when only days before his own assassination, he “admonished this country to remember the common thread of charity and peace that defines this country, that indeed lights the possibility to improve our way of being with one another, to heal this country’s wounds and to care for each other in our communities with love rather than division and hate.”

Oldroyd encouraged: “Continue to find light in the golden threads that connect us, that force us to listen when it’s hard, that require us to treat each other with dignity, to show indeed that you are the light that will resolve the divisions that we suffer from today.

“The lanterns of solidarity will glow in windows for that next generation to see that history has nothing to do with a textbook, but everything with how we do our daily business, how we talk to one another, and indeed, how we treat each other,” she concluded. “Compromise is a lovely word and rigorous work, and there is nothing modest or small about charity. The work of peace has everything to do with strength and tolerance and values and principles that will indeed light us to America 251, and beyond.”