“People Don’t Talk That Way Anymore”

Patriotism is, sadly, out of fashion in elite circles. On the left, critics of America argue that the injustices and hypocrisies of the Founding invalidate the republic’s highest ideals. On the right, increasing numbers seem to believe that the country has entered a period of moral decline—which some even attribute to the Founders themselves. 

A serious study of the American Revolution would do much to restore the national faith, but so too could rewatching an important film from the recent past: National Treasure. Premiering twenty years ago this week, the movie may seem on the surface like a somewhat silly adventure flick. The plot is absurd and the acting is cheesy. But digging a little deeper, a careful viewer will find it contains important lessons about what it means to be a patriot in an age of doubt. 

Without question, National Treasure ranks with the Indiana Jones series as one of the great treasure hunt movies of all time. It opens with a young Benjamin Franklin Gates (played as an adult by Nicholas Cage) learning from his grandfather (played by Christopher Plummer) about the “Templar Treasure,” a hoard of gold and artifacts accumulated from the greatest civilizations of the West. Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome all contributed something to this trove, which eventually makes its way to colonial America and comes under the protection of the Founding Fathers. 

This is an admittedly ridiculous premise. In real life, there was no Masonic conspiracy to hide a literal treasure from tyrannical Redcoats. But from this opening scene, the philosophic connection between the United States and the broader Western tradition ought to be clear. America was not founded on some rejection of our civilizational forebears, but rather as the culmination of that inheritance. The real treasure the Founders sought to protect was a certain view of the dignified human person, born free and equal and deserving protection from arbitrary power—what Edmund Burke called “the spirit of an exalted freedom.”

Read more in Law & Liberty.