Has patriotism become unfashionable? Last year, a Wall Street Journal poll reported that just 38% of Americans view patriotism as very important. That’s down from the 70% who said the same in 1998. The question is, why?

De Tocqueville, the famous French author who loved America, offers some insights. In his essay, “On Public Spirit in the United States,” he describes two kinds of patriotism, warns of the moments when patriotism fades, and offers a solution for patriotic renewal.

The first kind of patriotism is instinctive. People love their home, and that “love intermingles with the taste for old customs, with respect for ancestors and memory of the past.” This patriotism, more monarchical in character, rests on old orders and traditions. It ebbs and flows, reigniting and then subsiding in times of war and peace.

In contrast, republican patriotism is steady, and the citizen “interests himself in the prosperity of his country at first as a thing that is useful to him, and afterwards as his own work.” He connects his character and destiny with that of his country. Republican patriotism is based in reflection, practice, and self-interest. It “is born of enlightenment; it develops with the aid of laws, it grows with the exercise of rights, and in the end it intermingles in a way with personal interest.”

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De Tocqueville was astonished and admired that such patriotism reigned in America, despite its citizens not having resided long on the land. He even quipped that a traveler could not criticize anything about America to an American, except perhaps the climate and the soil, “and still, one finds Americans ready to defend both as if they had helped to form them.”

But “sometimes a moment arrives in the lives of peoples when old customs are changed, mores destroyed, beliefs shaken, the prestige of memories faded away.” The land “become a lifeless land in their eyes,” and they are dismissive and disparaging of their ancestors and legislators. Neither form of patriotism appeals any longer to the hearts and minds of the people.

It is difficult to read De Tocqueville’s description of such a moment without thinking of our current time. Civic education is in a sorry state. We tear down statues and with them our memories, good or bad. Four out of 10 Zoomers believe the Founders can be more accurately described as villains, rather than heroes, according to psychologist Jean Twenge’s Generations. It is perhaps no surprise that patriotism matters less for the technological generations who have retreated to the online world and avoid in-person conflicts, or even everyday niceties.

De Tocqueville’s prescription for patriotic renewal is for men and women to participate in government and society. As he famously observed, Americans formed civic associations for even seemingly mundane tasks. Such involvement allows citizens to come together for the purpose of repairing a community center or conducting a fundraiser without care for partisan political disagreements. Engaged citizens begin to see each other as neighbors first, not political adversaries, and view differences through the lens of good will rather than suspicion.

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More fundamentally, America’s political system being animated by consent of the governed affords citizens a sense of ownership of their country. It is the principle “all men are created equal” which demands public opinion be treated as sovereign, making that principle the ultimate source of American patriotism. To understand this more fully, we might turn to one of De Tocqueville’s most noteworthy American contemporaries, Abraham Lincoln.

When commemorating the 4th of July, Lincoln observed that many Americans were no longer direct descendants of those who fought the Revolution. As time went on, would the unity and patriotism of America erode? He responded that, as Americans look to the Declaration, they will find that they:

have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.

It is the Declaration that defines and unites Americans. It gives us a principle to strive towards, an ideal that we are asked to further and fulfill, inviting us to love America because it is good in its mission, even if imperfect. Perhaps the most significant source of the current decline of patriotism is that we no longer understand, and maybe even do not believe, the truth of this great principle.

Our call today is to take it seriously, to wrestle with it. We may find that it not only makes us patriotic, but ennobles us, both as individuals, and as a people.