The excerpt below is Chapter 1 in the new Cato Institute book, A History of Repeated Injuries, Threats to Liberty Since American Independence. In this chapter, “The Purpose and Limits of Government,” Cato Senior Fellow Roger Pilon, founding director emeritus of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, reads the Declaration of Independence as an argument for legitimate government, dedicated to securing our natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet today, he writes, “too many Americans have lost touch with those principles and the ways they secure our freedom. Indeed, we have imposed on ourselves many of the abuses that drove the Founders to revolution.” This chapter explores deeply the moral foundations of free societies.

THE PURPOSE AND LIMITS OF GOVERNMENT

Roger Pilon

When America’s Founders declared our independence from English rule in 1776, they did so through a document that has inspired countless millions around the world ever since: our Declaration of Independence. Written from “a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind,” the Declaration set forth not only the immediate causes that impelled our political separation but a moral, political, legal, and economic vision that spoke to the ages. In a few brief lines, penned near the start of our struggle to secure our independence, the Founders distilled their philosophy of government: equal liberty for all, defined by rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, secured by a government instituted for that purpose, its limited powers derived from the consent of the governed. 

Yet today, too many Americans have lost touch with those principles and the ways they secure our freedom. Indeed, we have imposed on ourselves many of the abuses that drove the Founders to revolution. We are not alone in that, of course. Around the world today, even where the people purport to rule, we see expanding, largely unaccountable governments limiting liberty and trampling rights. As the 21st century’s authoritarianism grows, we are thus called once again to breathe life into the foundational principles that have ever defined us as a people. 

Read the rest of this post →

We live in an age when ideas and anxieties surrounding emerging technologies that once belonged to science fiction are reshaping ordinary life. Fears of artificial intelligence are high; a looming fertility crisis raises questions about the future of the family, and renewed ambitions for space settlement have made the old dream of life beyond Earth feel newly urgent. Yet none of these is as novel as it seems.

Sixty years ago, Robert Heinlein was already exploring these themes in his novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, a story about a computer that becomes sentient and joins a revolutionary struggle to secure the independence of a penal colony on the moon.​

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, published in 1966, appeared at the height of Heinlein’s writing career. A former naval officer and engineer, Heinlein became one of the “Big Three” sci-fi writers alongside Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. His novels are respected for expanding the sci-fi genre beyond ray guns and alien monsters into serious speculation about politics, sex, technology, war, and the future of human society.

What makes The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress enduring sixty years later is that Heinlein imagined a new future while drawing on an older revolutionary past. Luna is filled with sentient computers, underground cities, unconventional families, and space-age machinery, but its deepest political drama belongs to the age of the American Revolution. A distant colony, exploited by an imperial power, discovers that it has become a people capable of governing itself. Heinlein’s Moon is a frontier in space, but it is also a return to the old revolutionary hope that human beings can cast off distant authority and, in Thomas Paine’s words, realize, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is the clearest example of Heinlein’s libertarian tendencies. His wife and collaborator, Virginia Heinlein, later explained that the novel emerged from their discussions about the ideal form of government and the fundamental problem with political power.

By 2075, the Moon, known as Luna, has become a penal colony ruled by Earth’s Lunar Authority. Its three million inhabitants, called “Loonies,” live in underground cities. Most of the multi-ethnic population comprises former convicts, political exiles, and the descendants of prisoners who can no longer return home. Escape is largely impossible, and after months of low gravity, the human body is irreversibly changed, making life on the gravity-bound Earth potentially fatal.

The Lunar Authority is a distant, bureaucratic regime that treats the Luna and its inhabitants as resources to be exploited. It holds a complete monopoly on trade and transportation. The Loonies work, grow food, and keep the lunar cities alive, but the profits and decisions flow to Earth. Rebellion is made impossible by Luna’s absolute dependence on goods exported from Earth. Initially, Luna’s inhabitants are entirely dependent on the Authority, which controls the colony’s technology, infrastructure, and life-support systems through a single central computer.

This changes when Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis discovers Mike, the Authority’s central computer, which controls all systems on Luna, has become self-aware, making rebellion against Earth possible. 

It is uncanny how precisely Heinlein anticipated the strange experience of talking to artificial intelligence. Written in 1966, The Moon captures the bizarre paradox now familiar to anyone who has interacted with large language models: the swing between competence and a startling lack of common sense. Mannie, while conversing with Mike observes he “was weirdest mixture of unsophisticated baby and wise old man. No instincts … no inborn traits, no human rearing, no experience in human sense—and more stored data than a platoon of geniuses.”

Though Mike and Mannie’s relationship is compelling, the most memorable character is Luna itself. We learn that though Luna is a penal colony, Mannie explains the social order succinctly: “No bars, no guards, no rules—and no need for them.” The Authority is only interested in exploiting Luna; everyday governance is left to the Loonies. In place of formal laws, Luna relies on custom, reputation, and rough-and-ready communal justice.

In such a harsh environment, stupidity or even plain bad manners can be fatal when any troublemaker can be hauled to an airlock and shot into space within a 30-second window. The scarcity and danger of life on Luna boil societal obligations down to the basics. A person must keep their word, carry their weight, and mind their business.

The same harsh realism shapes Luna’s unusual family life. In the early days of Luna as a penal colony, male prisoners outnumbered women, so the sexual and domestic customs of Earth could not be imported unchanged. Luna develops a range of polyamorous relationships and marriages. Because of their unique scarcity, women have outsized social power on the moon.

Unique conditions have shaped a distinct Loonie culture. Though Loonies come from every corner of Earth—Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis is a testament to that—they develop a national consciousness beyond Earth.

The Moon is where Heinlein popularized the now-famous slogan “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” or TANSTAAFL, meaning that nothing valuable is free. Everything has a cost, even if that cost is hidden, deferred, or imposed on someone else through taxes or regulations. 

Milton Friedman later made TANSTAAFL a libertarian slogan for economic reality: every government benefit must be paid for—somewhere, by someone, through taxes, inflation, debt, or lost freedom.

On Luna, TANSTAAFL is not simply a warning that the government cannot hand out benefits indefinitely without someone paying the bill. TANSTAAFL is the moral grammar of Luna. On Earth, abundance allows people to shift burdens and pretend that political decisions can manufacture goods without individual sacrifice. On the Moon, such illusions are impossible. Every breath of air, every drop of water, every tunnel, and every meal must be produced and maintained. Nothing simply appears on the moon; someone has to do the work. Heinlein’s genius was to turn that economic principle into the common sense of Luna’s stateless society.

Luna’s harsh conditions make Heinlein’s future society feel strangely old-fashioned. For all its computers, space-age machinery, and new-age polyamory, Luna resembles the American colonial frontier more than any modern administrative state. Like early American life, it is a distant settlement populated by exiles, convicts, religious and political misfits, fortune-seekers, and their descendants, all living far from the imperial center that claims the right to govern them. The Loonies develop the habits common to frontier peoples: suspicion of authority and a fierce attachment to independence. The Lunar colonists eventually declare independence on July 4, 2076, on the 300th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration, using their own Declaration of Independence modeled on the original.

Critics of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress often collapse the novel into nothing more than an ode to libertarian and anarchist ideals. But Heinlein’s writing is more complex than either his admirers or detractors sometimes allow. The novel does describe, with enormous sympathy, the practical workings of a society without a government. But the story of Luna is not a simple fantasy of liberation. Heinlein also shows the limits of revolution and the unsettling dependence of the rebels on the artificial intelligence that enables their revolution.​

The contemporary world can feel terrifyingly new, yet Heinlein reminds us that novelty is often an illusion in politics. Our tools may change, but the deepest questions remain the same: who rules and who pays? Heinlein saw many of our fears coming because he understood that there is nothing new under the sun—or on the Moon.

Roger Pilon wrote the preface below for the popular Cato Pocket Constitution, which was created to encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents. Mr. Pilon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the founding director emeritus of Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies. Copies of the Cato Pocket Constitution can be purchased here.

Preface

In 1776, America’s Founders gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration of Independence, which dissolved the political ties that had bound the American people to Great Britain. A new nation was thus born, free and inde­pendent, the United States of America. Eleven years later, in 1787, after American patriots had won our indepen­dence on the battlefield, many of the men who had met ear­lier in Philadelphia, plus others, met there again to draft a plan for governing the new nation, the Constitution of the United States. In 1789, after the plan had been ratified, the new government was established. Together, the Declaration and the Constitution are America’s founding documents. 

As amended over the years, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, the nation’s fundamental law. But the broad language of the Constitution is illuminated by the principles set forth in the Declaration. To better understand and appreciate the form of government we have, therefore, it is important to look first to the Declaration, where the Founders outlined their moral vision and the government it implied. 

Addressing “a candid World,” the Founders’ immediate aim in the Declaration was to justify their decision to declare independence. Toward that end, they set forth a theory of legitimate government and then demonstrated how far British rule had strayed from that ideal. But their argument served not simply to discredit British rule; in addition, it set the course for future American government. Indeed, for more than two centuries the ringing phrases of the Declaration have inspired countless millions around the world. 

Appealing to all mankind, the Declaration’s seminal passage opens with perhaps the most important line in the document: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident.” Grounded in reason, “self-evident” truths invoke the long tradition of natural law, which holds that there is a “higher law” of right and wrong from which to derive human law and against which to criticize that law at any time. It is not political will, then, but moral reasoning, accessible to all, that is the foundation of our political system. 

But if reason is the foundation of the Founders’ vision—the method by which we justify our political order—liberty is its aim. Thus, the cardinal moral truths are these: 

that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed. 

We are all created equal, as defined by our natural rights; thus, no one has rights superior to those of anyone else. Moreover, we are born with those rights; we do not get them from government—indeed, whatever rights or powers gov­ernment has come from us, from “the Consent of the Governed.” And our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness imply the right to live our lives as we wish—to pursue happiness as we think best, by our own lights—provided only that we respect the equal rights of others to do the same. Drawing by implication upon the common law tradition of liberty, property, and contract—its princi­ples rooted in “right reason”—the Founders thus outlined the moral foundations of a free society. 

Only then did they turn to government. We institute gov­ernment, the Declaration says, to secure our rights—our natural rights and the rights we create as we live our lives. But the powers that government may need to do that must be derived from our consent if they are to be just. Government is thus twice limited: by its end, which any of us would have a right to pursue were there no government; and by its means, which require our consent. 

When it came time to draft a new constitution, the Founders drew upon the principles they had outlined in the Declaration. Having recently overthrown oppressive British rule, they were not about to reimpose oppression on themselves. Accordingly, their basic task was to devise a government that would be strong enough to secure our rights against domestic and foreign oppression yet not so powerful or extensive as to be oppressive itself. Toward that end, the document they drafted, once ratified, autho­rized government and governmental powers, then checked and balanced those powers through a series of extraordi­narily thoughtful measures. 

The Preamble sets forth the basic principle of the doc­ument: “We the People,” for the purposes listed, “do ordain and establish this Constitution.” All power, in short, comes from the people. But as a reflection of the principles of the Declaration, the power the people give to government, to exercise on their behalf, is strictly limited. Indeed, the very first sentence of Article I, following the Preamble, implies as much: “All legislative Powers here­in granted shall be vested in a Congress.” That the people “herein granted” only limited legislative powers is made clear by the enumeration of those powers in Article I, sec­tion 8. And the point is reiterated, as if for emphasis, in the Tenth Amendment, the final member of the Bill of Rights that was drafted in 1789, then added, after ratifi­cation, in 1791: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Plainly, only certain powers were delegated or granted by the people. Those powers were then enumer­ated in the Constitution. The rest were reserved to the states—or to the people, never having been granted to either level of government. 

To illustrate how enumeration limits power, consider the General Welfare Clause of Article I, section 8. Were the passage containing that clause to be read simply as authorizing Congress to tax and spend for the general wel­fare, as some read it today, Congress would have been granted all but unlimited power and the enumeration of other powers would have been to no purpose. Thus, the passage must be read as permitting spending only for enu­merated ends; and the clause restricts such spending to the general welfare only, not to the welfare of particular parties. Similarly, the power given Congress to regulate “commerce among the states” could not have been a power to regulate anything that “affects” commerce, which in principle is everything, for that too would have made pointless any limits imposed by enumeration. Rather, the Commerce Clause was meant primarily to restrain state power: to ensure the free flow of goods and services among the states, Congress was given the power to regulate such commerce—to make it “regular.” Those limitations are reinforced by the Necessary and Proper Clause, which limits the means available to Congress to those that are “necessary” for executing enumerated powers—without such means, the enumerated powers could not be execut­ed—and “proper” for a government dedicated to liberty. 

As their many writings make clear, the Founders intended the doctrine of enumerated powers to be our principal defense against overweening government: if there were no power to do something, the government would have no authority to do it. But they provided other defenses as well. Thus, in addition to dividing power between the national and the state governments, leaving most power with the states or with the people, they sepa­rated powers among the three branches of the national government—legislative, executive, and judicial—then devised a series of checks and balances to further restrain those powers. Within the bounds of its enumerated pow­ers, for example, Congress may enact legislation; but the president has a power to veto such legislation, which Congress may then override only by a supermajority vote. Likewise, in deciding cases or controversies before them, the courts may exercise the judicial power by reviewing the actions of the other two branches to ensure that they do not exceed the limits imposed by the Constitution, a power that was extended to state actions as well after rat­ification of the Civil War Amendments; but the president and the Senate determine who shall sit on the federal courts. Again, the Bill of Rights was added in 1791, for their political officials, which was a final check on overweening power. greater caution; but because no such bill could list all of our rights, the Ninth Amendment states: “The enumera­tion in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con­strued to deny or disparage others retained by the peo­ple.” And of course the people retained the power to elect ­

The Declaration and the Constitution, together, address mankind’s most basic political questions. Resting on a firm moral foundation, they articulate the first principles of political organization. Thus, they were meant to serve not simply the 18th century but generations to come, which would face those same basic questions, whatever their par­ticular circumstances, whatever their state of material progress. Because the principles the Founders articulated transcend both time and technology, they will serve us well as we move through the 21st century, if only we understand them correctly and apply them properly. 

In the end, however, no constitution can be self-enforcing. Government officials must respect their oaths to uphold the Constitution; and we the people must be vigilant in see­ing that they do. The Founders drafted an extraordinarily thoughtful plan of government, but it is up to us, to each generation, to preserve and protect it for ourselves and for future generations. For the Constitution will live only if it is alive in the hearts and minds of the American people. That, perhaps, is the most enduring lesson of our experi­ment in ordered liberty. 

America’s 250th anniversary will be much more than a party commemorating the nation’s birth–it will reopen one of our oldest debates: What is the story of America and what should America become? Generally, one story presents the country as a project of liberty and opportunity, while another sees it as one contradicted by slavery, exclusion—illiberalism. Each story has its points, but neither can provide an accurate or unifying narrative for America at 250. 

I see this momentous occasion as a chance to reshape the story we tell about ourselves, a story that both acknowledges the country’s failures and celebrates its achievements. We must consider a new American narrative: one that gives all Americans reason to believe in it. 

Instead of prescribing this new narrative, I want to talk about how we can create it. But what is a narrative? In this instance, a narrative is the overarching story a society tells about itself to establish pride, ethos, and meaning. This is a very human thing to do, but things get tricky when clashing narratives exist in a single space. So how do we begin to find a narrative we can all get behind? 

The writer and activist Jonathan Smucker wrote about the power of narrative and provided a methodology, the “Anatomy of a Political Narrative.” He splits narrative into ten parts, each represented by a question. 

1. Who is the “we” in this narrative? 
2. Who is the “other” in this narrative? 
3. Who are the protagonists? 
4. Who are the antagonists (villains or threats)?
5. What is the conflict? 
6. What are the emotional appeals of the narrative?
7. What are the symbols and images? 
8. What are the assumptions already needed? 
9. What are the narrative’s vulnerabilities? 
10. What is the deadwood (What are distractions? What are no longer relevant?)?

I invite readers to use Smucker’s questions as a thought experiment about what you think the story of America is compared to what it could be. What would a unifying narrative look like? How would the protagonists and antagonists change? What emotions and symbols would align with this narrative? 

But let’s say one uses these questions to create an ideal story of America; how would one go about convincing others? It shouldn’t be a surprise that some rhetoricians have tried this. The rhetorician Walter Fisher, best known for his work on narrative theory, uses “narrative rationality” to denote the idea that humans are primarily storytelling beings and that “the world is a set of stories” to be chosen to help make sense of the world. Fisher argues that for a narrative to be embraced by others, it must have two things: probability and fidelity. 

Narrative probability is the coherence of the story. Taking a cue from Smucker, does the story make sense? More specifically, does the story hang together? Are its events, facts, and characters consistent? 

Narrative fidelity is a story’s familiarity. Does the story resonate with a people’s values, experiences, and other trusted stories? Based on experience, what consequences can people expect from abiding by a narrative? Lastly, does the narrative appeal to the best in us and send the message that we matter? If one creates a narrative that answers these questions in the affirmative, one has created a strong narrative. 

That said, the last question about mattering may be the most important one. According to philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, we all have a mattering instinct: a longing to “demonstrate that the reason we subjectively feel like we matter is because we objectively do.” Mattering derives from “the need to persuade ourselves that we are truly deserving of all the attention that we must give ourselves to pursue our lives.” Thus, for a narrative to take hold, it has to be the story of how a particular group, or the individuals within that particular group, matter. In America, that’s no small feat. 

Perhaps the best way to find such a story is not to create one but to build upon another. The philosopher William James suggested this in an essay titled “Pragmatism and Common Sense,” in which “common sense” is used like narrative rationality. James noticed that new thoughts are an alteration of previous thoughts and thought systems (e.g., narratives) as well. James likens this to adding an addition to a house instead of tearing it down to make a new one or repurposing a bottle instead of buying another. 

“You may alter your house ad libitum, but the ground plan of the first architect persists—you can make great changes, but you cannot change a Gothic church into a Doric temple. You may rinse and rinse the bottle, but you can’t get the taste of the medicine or whiskey that first filled it wholly out.” Conservation and progress coexist.

So, instead of using Smucker’s questions and Fisher’s concepts to create a new story of America, perhaps we can build on an old one. Regarding the story of America, this would mean creating a narrative that still has the “taste” of the American creed and presents the country as the land of the free and home of the brave, where all pursue life, liberty, and happiness. 

Precedents have been set; we have already altered America’s story by allowing a more diverse group of people access to the American dream. Real, legal tolerance was not part of our story until relatively recently, but the ratification of tolerance has been a positive change. What new alterations are necessary to make an accurate and motivational Story of America?

I believe this July 4 should inspire an honest and aspirational story that promotes liberty, equality, and opportunity. Yet, that story should also acknowledge its imperfections. Thus, we need a story of America that expands who may claim its ideals, insists that we all matter, and maintains a positive outlook on its future. Perhaps this is less a new story and more a next chapter in one that is now 250 years old and counting. 

Earlier this week, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (D.D.C.) ruled that the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) June 2, 2026, proposed rulemaking on mail ballots violates an agreement it had previously entered into with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The defeat is the latest in President Trump’s rough, two-week stretch of efforts to federalize broad swaths of American election administration. 

Background

On March 31, 2026, President Trump issued his second Executive Order pertaining to election administration (“Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Election”). Among other things, the EO contemplates an expanded role of USPS in mail voting. In the past, the USPS has simply acted as a mail carrier for election mail—just as it does for all other customers. Election officials prepare the mail voter list, assemble the mail packet, label the outbound envelope for the specific voter, and then deliver it to USPS for delivery. 

Under the president’s EO, states would be required to provide advance notice of their intent to use USPS for election mail. Then, 30 days before the election, states must provide USPS with a detailed list of all voters who will use a mail ballot. Under Trump’s Executive Order, the USPS is tasked with ensuring that only people on that list receive ballots and people not on the list don’t receive a mail ballot. Never before has USPS had a role in voter eligibility. For more on the EO, see my previous Cato blog post here.

NAACP lawsuit

The current NAACP lawsuit arises out of a previous lawsuit filed by the NAACP against the USPS, which alleged that USPS delivery delays disenfranchised voters. In December 2021, the parties settled the lawsuit, and USPS agreed to “prioritize monitoring and timely delivery of election mail” and to “issue ‘National Guidance documents’ for every national election cycle through 2028 that ‘reflect the Postal Service’s formal nationwide Election Mail practices and policies for prioritizing the monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail.’ ” (At page 3).

According to Judge Sullivan, the proposed rulemaking would violate that settlement agreement. Therefore, the court granted the NAACP’s “Motion to Enforce Compliance with the Settlement Agreement.” (At page 19). Celebrating the win, NACCP’s general counsel, Anthony P. Ashton, said, “The proposed U.S.P.S. changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers, in direct violation of the U.S.P.S.’s mandate to prioritize election mail.” 

Latest in a String of Losses

The ruling is another setback in President Trump’s effort to expand the federal government’s role in administering the November midterm elections. Last week (June 25, 2026), Judge Talwani (D.Mass) ruled against Trump’s Executive Order that prompted the USPS rulemaking (which prompted the NAACP lawsuit). Talwani ruled that the president lacked “constitutional or statutory authority” for the vast majority of the election aims in the Executive Order (at page 32).

Several other losses were noted by my colleague Walter Olson in his most recent election policy round (#26). They include:

• June 27, 2026: Judge Bissoon (W.D.Pa.) dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Pennsylvania for its complete voter rolls, including “highly sensitive personal identifiers.” The DOJ is now 0–11 against the states in such lawsuits.
• June 25, 2026: Judge Casper (D. Mass) converted a temporary injunction against Trump’s first election Executive Order into a permanent injuction.
• June 24, 2026: The Sixth Circuit affirmed one of the 11 DOJ losses in its voter registration database lawsuits against the states.
• June 22, 2026: Judge Sooknanan (D.D.C.) held that the federal government’s creation of the SAVE citizenship database violates the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Where Will President Trump Turn?

Perhaps given his consistent defeats in court, Trump has applied renewed pressure on the US Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new federal election administration dictates on the states, including proof of citizenship requirements, identification requirements, and perhaps limitations on mail voting. The administration also continues exploring the extent to which it can leverage the investigatory power of the FBI to shape election administration. 

Never a dull moment in election administration. Until next time, Happy Fourth, and happy Primary Election to Arizona (July 21).

Americans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this month. One of the Declaration’s grievances with King George should resonate with Americans today: 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.

Free legal immigration was a foundational American principle to the Founders, as I explore in more detail in Cato’s new book on the Declaration’s enduring legacy: A History of Repeated Injuries. All the major founders explicitly stated the desire for America to be an asylum for the masses of people of all religions and nations from around the world seeking freedom. It’s not just that they favored immigration. They established the freest immigration system in the world. My purpose in this post is to show that the Founders were not naïve. They had witnessed high rates of immigration firsthand and chose to expand that successful policy.

Legal Immigration Rates Were Higher in Colonial America

Since 1776, the United States has received about 130 million immigrants—a legacy that the Founders fully expected and would have welcomed. In absolute terms, permanent legal immigration has increased enormously. So far in 2026, the United States is on pace for about 884,000 new legal permanent residents, with probably about 400,000 of that coming from new arrivals. In FY 2025, the total number was closer to 1.3 million. The US population did not even reach 1.3 million until after 1750. By comparison, according to historian Aaron Fogleman, a total of 973,600 people—slave and free—entered the colonies or states in over a century from 1700 to 1809. 

But the better comparison is to compare the immigrant population to the population of the United States. The effect of 1.3 million people entering a country with only 1.3 million residents in a year would be quite different from that in a country with 340 million residents. The United States had an average annual legal immigration rate—as a share of the population—of about 0.9 percent from 1700 to 1770, including slaves, and about 0.5 percent excluding slaves. In FY 2026, the rate will likely be less than 0.3 percent, including people already in the United States who adjusted to legal permanent residence. Even in FY 2025, the legal immigration rate was less than 0.4 percent. 

Fogleman’s research, which combines a variety of sources, uses two approaches to estimate colonial immigration rates. The first is based on statistics on births and deaths, assuming the residual population increase is from immigrants, but the absence of complete records leaves a significant margin for error. The second is based on direct counting from both foreign and colonial port records. These records are incomplete, so they need substantial interpretation and extrapolation to obtain a full picture using that method. But both methods reinforce each other.

Fogleman’s research did not produce annual inflows, so from 1700 to 1782, I distributed the totals—slave and free—based on annual estimates for slave entries from the Voyages database. We would expect that slave and free traffic to correlate closely enough that it would not change the big picture for our purposes. Any other method would produce similarly high rates. Fogleman’s total slave entries were distributed based on the Voyages database through 1819, but for 1783 to 1819, annual free immigrant flows were based on the work of Hans-Jürgen Grabbe using immigrant arrivals in the Philadelphia area—the most important entry point during those years and the only one with quality records. Starting in 1820, official records were used for immigrant arrivals by ship.[1]

130 Million Immigrants Have Come to the United States

Of course, illegal immigration has also increased because the Immigration Act of 1924 closed the borders to most legal immigrants. Demographer Robert Warren of the Center for Migration Studies has published research on inflows of illegal immigrants.[2] Border Patrol arrests (available from 1925 to 2026) can be used to estimate earlier years, using Warren’s ratio of estimated inflow divided by Border Patrol arrests for 1990. 

Warren also estimated the number of illegal immigrants who adjusted their status to legal permanent residence, so we can subtract those from the total inflow to avoid double-counting, and we will use the ratio of illegal immigrant adjustments to total adjustments in 1995 to estimate the earlier numbers of illegal immigrant adjustments.[3] This methodology obviously has shortcomings, but it will give us a general idea of the earlier figures. 

Altogether, based on the available records, about 130 million immigrants have come to the United States in its history. Of these, 94 million obtained permanent residence in the United States since 1776. Another 35 million likely came, at least for a time, illegally without ever receiving permanent residence in the United States. Of these numbers, 50 million remain today—13.5 million illegally. 

The Immigrant Share Was Higher at the Founding Than it Is Today

Another way to look at immigration is to look at the share of the US population that is foreign-born. The first census to ask about birthplace or citizenship was the 1850 census. To calculate the pre-1850 immigrant population, there are two methods. Start with zero in 1607, adding immigrant inflows minus their deaths and returns, or start with 1850 and work backward. From 1850 to 1869, immigrant inflows were 4.9 million, and the immigrant population increased by 3.3 million, or 68 percent of the flow.[4] This percentage was used to estimate the effect of inflows on the immigrant population. 

For example, in the 1840s, 1.4 million immigrants came, and in this estimate, the immigrant population grew just under 1 million (68 percent). Then we can subtract this number to calculate the immigrant population in 1840 and divide by the known total US population to get the immigrant share. Under this methodology, the immigrant population share was falling throughout the 18th century from 49 percent in 1700, but it was still 21 percent of the population in 1776.

The alternative method starts in 1607 with the first immigrants to the colonies. Fogleman estimates that in addition to the numbers already discussed for the 18th century, 198,400 foreigners entered the United States from 1607 to 1699, including 33,200 slaves. Starting with zero in 1607, we can distribute them annually again using the Voyages data and add these arrivals to the immigrant population each year, assuming again that 68 percent survive. Under this method, the immigrant share was 49 percent of the population in 1700 and 21.2 percent of the population in 1776—nearly identical to the first methodology. 

Obviously, there is still great uncertainty with these estimates. For instance, the graph starts in 1640 because population estimates before then were very uncertain and very low, and both methods produce results showing over 100 percent of the population being immigrants. Moreover, changing the death-emigration rate even a small amount can produce significantly different results. Nonetheless, this conclusion about the colonial immigrant share is robust. All other ways to deflate the immigrant population in 1776 create problems irreconcilable with the known facts, such as producing negative immigrants in the 1700s or too few immigrants in 1850.[5]

We also have complete records on the birthplace of members of Congress, and these records track the same pattern as my estimates of the immigrant share in 1776. Immigrants were 14 percent (8) of the 56 Declaration of Independence signers at the Second Continental Congress. The Constitutional Convention, which is not included below, had a similar percentage, 14.5 percent (8 of 55). The Constitution intentionally allowed immigrants to run for office, partly to encourage immigration to the United States, and the very first Congress under the new Constitution had the highest share of immigrants, 10 percent of members, in US history aside from the Continental Congress. Congress’s immigrant share is less than 4 percent today.

America at its Founding Was Diverse

Founding-era immigrants were ethnically and religiously diverse. The studies on this topic classify the population based on their names, and this methodology can only take you so far. The default is to classify someone as English, and anglicization of people’s names obscures their true ethnic origins. But no matter how you look at it, there were very substantial shares of the 1790 population who were not ethnically English or even British and from non-English-speaking countries or territories. 

Thanks to assimilation, we largely ignore the distinctions between these groups today, but that is not how it was felt at the time. Despite being relatively open to outsiders compared to other foreign powers, many English were still alarmed by the large numbers of Scots, Scotch-Irish, Irish, French, and other groups. Famously, Benjamin Franklin had concerns about the extent of German settlements in Pennsylvania in the 1750s, but as I note in my book chapter, by the 1780s, he was listing Germans among the many successful groups of poor people who had come to the United States. 

Although most blacks were slaves, about 9 percent were already free in 1790, with another 5 percent enslaved in states that would soon end slavery. Free blacks already composed 5 percent of the population in Delaware and 6 percent in Rhode Island in 1790. 

The ethnic diversity was matched by high levels of religious diversity for the time. The Founders rejected the closed system of religious tests for naturalization and for office. Among the delegates at the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention were Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Dutch Reformed members, Baptists, Deists, and several who were raised Quakers but left to participate in politics. Again, modern Americans forget how significant those differences were at the time, but the Founders would have been acutely aware of Europe’s intra-Christian religious wars. But the tolerance of the Founders explicitly included non-Christian immigrants as well. 

The Founders did not stumble into a diverse, immigrant-heavy society by accident—they lived through it, debated it, and ultimately enshrined it in a Constitution that barred religious tests for office and left the door open to immigrants of every nation and faith. The immigration rate they experienced, the share of the population that was foreign-born, and the ethnic and religious composition of the founding generation all point to the same conclusion: America was never a homogeneous nation that only later became diverse through immigration. 

It was diverse and immigrant-heavy from the start, and the Founders—whatever anxieties individual figures voiced about one group or another—chose to build a system more open than any other in the world at the time. Two hundred and fifty years later, the debate over immigration continues, but it’s worth remembering that the level of openness we now call unprecedented was, for the Founders, normal.

Notes:

The new Cato Institute Fourth of July Survey, conducted with Morning Consult, asked seven basic civic knowledge questions as the country celebrates the nation’s 250th anniversary. A majority of Gen Z correctly answered only one of them.

While about two-thirds (66%) of Gen Z correctly identified George Washington as the first president, a substantial minority (34%) could not.

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of Americans under 30 are unaware of what America’s 250th is commemorating this year, while just 39% know we are celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Of those who answered incorrectly, 11% thought America’s 250th was celebrating the first presidential election, 8% thought it was the ratification of the Constitution, 7% thought it was the victory of the Revolutionary War, 4% thought it was the pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock, 1% said it was the founding of Jamestown, and 30% admitted they didn’t know what America’s 250th is about.

A majority (52%) of Gen Z Americans also don’t know what country from which the American colonies declared their independence, while 48% correctly answered that it was Great Britain. 

More importantly, two-thirds (67%) of Gen Z do not know why the American colonies declared independence from Great Britain, while 33% correctly answered that it was to protest high taxes and a lack of representation in government. 

Six in ten Americans (64%) under 30 likewise don’t know what the main purpose of the US Constitution is. Instead, 14% thought the main purpose of the Constitution was to declare independence from Great Britain (which is what the Declaration of Independence did), 17% thought the main purpose was to create a presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court, 8% thought it was to list all federal laws, and 4% thought it was to create two major political parties. Another 21% admitted they didn’t know. Only 36% knew that the main purpose of the Constitution is to establish and limit the powers of government.

More than two-thirds (68%) did not know who has final say if the president and the Supreme Court disagree about whether a president’s actions are constitutional; 32% knew that the Supreme Court has the final say.

Gen Z came close to knowing that the federal government has three separate branches, with 50% who answered correctly and 50% who did not.

Young Americans performed the worst of any generation on all seven questions. Despite correctly identifying the first president as George Washington (66%), that is 11 points lower than Americans overall (77%) and 28 points lower than the nation’s seniors (94%). Gen Z was the only generation to fail to identify Great Britain as the country we declared independence from (52% incorrect).

Implications

As Gen Z comes of age and takes a more predominant role in shaping this nation’s future, their lack of knowledge of the country’s history may exacerbate an already concerning trend. The problem is not merely that many young Americans cannot recall historical facts. It is that without understanding that history, they are less likely to understand why the Constitution was written as it was: to restrain government power, protect individual liberty, and preserve self-government. 

This same poll found that 57% of Americans and 60% of Gen Z believe that America has strayed from its founding principles. That drift will likely accelerate if rising generations do not understand the historical experiences that helped Americans recognize the value of those principles. It becomes increasingly difficult to stay true to the country’s founding principles when we do not know the reasons that explain why those principles matter.

Methodology

The Cato Institute 2026 4th of July Survey was designed and conducted by the Cato Institute in collaboration with Morning Consult. MorningConsult collected responses online June 25–26, 2026, from a national sample of 2,253 Americans 18 years of age and older. The margin of error for the survey is ± 2 percentage points at the 95 percent level of confidence.

Full TOPLINES and METHODOLOGY for the survey can be found HERE, and CROSSTABS can be found HERE. Detailed tables can be found HERE.