Two hundred and fifty years ago, our nation embarked on an extraordinary experiment: the idea that ordinary people, through dialogue, disagreement, and shared responsibility, could govern themselves. Every generation is asked to renew that experiment. This anniversary is our turn.
At a School that bears U.S. Senator and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey's name, I often think about his belief that democracy is not simply something we inherit; it is something we practice. He reminded us that the moral test of government is how it treats "those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped."
The 250th has arrived at a demanding moment for public life. Trust in our institutions is strained. Disagreement too often curdles into contempt, and the everyday work of governing across our differences can feel harder than it has in a long time. It would be easy to treat this milestone as a pageant, a matter of fireworks and founding stories. I would rather treat it as an accounting: not only of how far we have come, but of what we owe the next 250 years.
Here is what I keep returning to. A democracy is not held up by its documents alone. It is held up by civic capacity, the accumulated habit of people showing up for one another and for the shared work of self-government. That capacity is built slowly, often in ordinary moments and sometimes in hard ones, and it is what allows a community to hold together when it is tested. Minnesota knows something about this. We call it following the North Star: a conviction that we are responsible for our neighbors and for the places we share. It is the tradition that formed Vice President Humphrey, and it is the tradition our students carry into public life every year.
I watched this play out this Fourth of July week. I spent it with rising college seniors at our NextGen Summer Policy Academy, in the opening session of the International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE), led by Jon Olson. They came prepared, not only with facts and arguments, but with curiosity, respect, and a willingness to work through difficult problems together. Over the course of an afternoon, they debated, negotiated, listened, and ultimately found common ground. Around them sat former diplomats and experienced practitioners who have spent their careers navigating challenges much like the ones these students were tackling for the first time.
Sitting in that room, I found myself looking straight at the next 250 years. I wasn't thinking about the 250 years behind us as much as the future in front of us. That future depends on whether we continue to invest in the next generation of public leaders. We do that by creating opportunities for young people to experience public life firsthand, to wrestle with simple and complex challenges, and to discover that leadership is less about having all the answers than about bringing people together to solve problems. That is how democracy endures, not by accident, but because each generation prepares the next to lead.
And I see that work everywhere I look. Recently, a colleague reminded me that democracy does not begin in legislatures. It begins at home, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and in the everyday choices we make as citizens. When her students feel overwhelmed by the scale of the world's challenges, she offers simple advice: you cannot solve everything at once, so choose one problem and see it through.
That is what the Humphrey School is at its core. We prepare people not only to understand public problems, but to engage them with curiosity, humility, and a commitment to serving others. It is the living classroom Hubert H. Humphrey envisioned, where the road to freedom still begins.
So, on this anniversary, I am not celebrating a finished story. I am recommitting to an unfinished one: our ongoing experiment in self-government. Democracy has always been a work in progress. It depends on people who choose to participate, to listen, to lead, and to serve. My hope is that this milestone inspires all of us not only to reflect on our history, but to recommit ourselves to the work ahead.
As the NextGen Summer Policy Academy came to a close, we celebrated this year's cohort over dinner at my home, and attended a performance of Come From Away at the Guthrie Theater, a musical about a small town that answered a moment of crisis by taking strangers in. Now these students will carry on to their own work of advancing our democracy. I can think of no more fitting way to conclude this anniversary week or to send these young people home inspired by the work ahead.
Democracy has always depended on small, stubborn lights: a citizen who shows up, a neighbor who helps, a student who chooses to serve. No darkness has ever been wide enough to put them all out. Two hundred and fifty years on, that light is still ours to carry.
Nisha Botchwey
Dean, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Thank you to Best Buy, the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, the GroundBreak Coalition, and Jay and Page Cowles for their support of the NextGen Summer Policy Academy.
