It is a nondescript room in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Standing behind a plexiglass wall, I could see a table with chairs, a fireplace, and a brown wooden armoire.

Thomas Jefferson stayed at this site for about a hundred days in 1776. It was here that he wrote three drafts of the Virginia Constitution, produced committee reports, authored a position paper, and maintained personal correspondence. 

And it was here that he completed the Declaration of Independence. 

The house where he stayed for those fateful days was torn down in 1883 but reconstructed by the National Park Service for America’s bicentennial in 1976. As a result, I was looking at a replica of Jefferson’s actual workspace. It was deeply moving to stand at the site where a document that changed history was authored. 

“When Thomas Jefferson dined alone” 

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most brilliant men America has ever known. I have read four biographies of him and remain deeply impressed with his genius. 

When I visited Monticello, the home in Virginia he designed, I was struck by the technological sophistication of his architectural brilliance. Jefferson served our country as the author of our Declaration of Independence and Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom. He was secretary of state under President Washington, vice president under John Adams, and president of the United States. He was also the father of the University of Virginia. 

From lobster races in Maine to a golf cart parade on Catalina Island and a lumberjack competition in Pennsylvania, Americans spent yesterday celebrating our nation’s independence. President Trump, speaking before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, declared: “We will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us. The future belongs to the brave, the strong, the proud and the free.”

Two hundred and forty-three years ago, fifty-six brave men pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to adopt the Declaration of Independence. Their act that day in Philadelphia changed the course of the world. The United States became the first nation in history to be founded on an idea: the principle of freedom. 

From then to today, America has been an exceptional country. 

Is this a God-given fact? If so, why?

I researched that question recently. Here is what I found. 

Our God-given geography is exceptional. 

The Greater Mississippi Basin with the Intracoastal Waterway has more miles of navigable internal waterways than the rest of the world combined. This is important because transporting goods by water is significantly cheaper than over land. 

The American Midwest is the world’s largest contiguous piece of farmland. The American Atlantic Coast possesses more major ports than the rest of the Western Hemisphere combined. And oceans to our east and west, deserts to our south, and lakes and forests to our north insulate us from the rest of the world. 

We are the least densely populated nation of any major global economy. More than half of our sixty largest cities face no restrictions on expansion in any direction. 

Our God-given resources are exceptional. 

With 5 percent of the world’s population, we produce nearly a third of the world’s wealth. The Texas economy is larger than the economies of Canada, Russia, or Australia;…