A new children’s book co-authored by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch about stories behind The Declaration of Independence is now on shelves, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of its signing.
“Heroes of 1776: The Story of The Declaration of Independence” highlights both well-known founding era figures, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Paul Revere, as well as lesser-known individuals such as Caesar Rodney, Thomas Paine, and Mary Katherine Goddard.
As the nation approaches July 4, 2026, Gorsuch’s message echoes broader semiquincentennial themes: preserving America’s experiment in self-government requires each generation to understand the sacrifices, ideas, and ordinary citizens who helped secure independence.
“Kids love superheroes. Our founders were superheroes, but they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things,” Gorsuch said at the George W. Bush and the Richard M. Nixon presidential libraries during book events with co-author Janie Nitze, one of his former law clerks.
He and Nitze wrote the book to encourage young readers to embrace civic virtue through stories of both famous and lesser-known Americans. He pointed to figures such as Emily Geiger, an 18-year-old spy who evaded British troops to deliver a critical message, and Caesar Rodney, who made an 80-mile nighttime journey through a thunderstorm while suffering from cancer to break a tie vote in favor of independence.
“The greatest danger America faces today is itself,” Gorsuch said, arguing that civic education and a shared understanding of history are essential to preserving the principles established in 1776.
Gorsuch’s concerns about civic literacy echo findings from the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, which found that 30% of adults could not name all three branches of government, and fewer than half could identify key rights protected by the First Amendment.
In a Fox News interview promoting the book, Gorsuch said Americans must understand their shared history in order to recognize that what unites them is greater than what divides them. He described the Declaration of Independence as containing three “radical” ideas: equality among all people, inalienable rights derived from God rather than government, and the right of self-government rather than rule by a king or dictator.
Highlighting Heroes of 1776, Gorsuch also pointed to Mary Katherine Goddard, the printer who affixed her name to the Declaration at a time when doing so could have been considered treason.
“Those three ideas really shook old Europe and were never before tried in history,” he told Fox News. “We now almost take them for granted. They’re the air we breathe, the water we swim in. But they required courageous men, women, and children to make happen in 1776—and they require the same of us today.”
Thomas Jefferson, Gorsuch added, was right that “an ignorant people will never remain free for long.”