HILLSDALE, Mich. — Matthew Spalding, vice president for Washington operations at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C. Campus, delivered remarks Wednesday at the Freedom 250 Mobile Museum kickoff event at Revolution Academy in Summerfield, North Carolina.
The kickoff marked the launch of a nationwide tour of interactive Mobile Museum trucks designed to bring American history and civics programming to communities across the country.
“I vividly remember America’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. I was in middle school and remember the fireworks and the Tall Ships and the Freedom Train. All that deepened my love of country and sparked my love of history,” Spalding said. “We are now in the 250th year of our country’s life. I invite all Americans to take this unique opportunity to learn—or perhaps relearn—our history, to discover anew the truths to which it is dedicated, and to fall in love with America again, or perhaps for the first time.”
Hillsdale College led the academic side of the trucks’ development. Hillsdale faculty and staff edited and curated the educational materials featured throughout the Mobile Museum experience.
In his remarks, Spalding traced the American founding and the development of American self-government and urged Americans to use the coming year of the nation’s semiquincentennial to learn and explore the country’s history and first principles.
“In 1776, when it announced itself to the world, America was little more than thirteen small colonies on a barren continent, thousands of miles from their ancestral homeland, surrounded by hostile powers. Ours is the story of a band of patriots who united together to declare independence from—and declare war against—the most powerful nation in the world. At its birth, our Founders justified independence and nationhood by asserting self-evident truths,” Spalding said.
Spalding is the Kirby Professor in Constitutional Government and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College and oversees the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship at Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C. Campus. He served as executive director of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission, which produced “The 1776 Report,” and he is currently a senior academic advisor for America250 projects. His new book, “The Making of the American Mind: The Making of Our Declaration of Independence,” was released in December 2025.
“What is truly revolutionary about America is that, for the first time in human history, universal ideas about man became the foundation for a particular nation and a particular system of government and its political culture. It was because of these principles, not despite them, that, rather than ending in tyranny, the American Revolution culminated in a constitutional government that has long endured,” Spalding said. “To this day, so many years after the American Revolution, the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and promulgated by the United States Constitution still define us as a nation and inspire us as a people.”
Other speakers and participants in the kickoff program included Secretary Sean Duffy of the U.S. Department of Transportation; Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling of the U.S. Department of Labor; Brittany Baldwin, senior policy advisor for America 250; Jill Simonian, director of outreach for PragerU Kids; Richard Childress, CEO of Childress Racing; and leaders from Revolution Academy and project partners.
For a headshot of Spalding and photos from the event, click here. To purchase Spalding’s book, click here. For photos of Hillsdale College, click here. For a high-resolution copy of the Hillsdale College clocktower logo, click here.