Two and a half centuries ago, America's founders forged the nation through fierce debate and compromise.

Now, as the country approaches its 250th birthday, many Americans are again questioning whether the nation still lives up to its founding ideals and whether its citizens are upholding theirs.

As Ali Rogan explains, a new book argues the answer may depend on how we define freedom.

When asked what sort of government the United States had, Benjamin Franklin famously said,

A Republic, if you can keep it.

Like many Americans, Forbes columnist Sophia Nelson has been wondering, how well have we kept it?

As the founder of the Redefining Freedom Center of

Virginia, Nelson seeks to answer that question and provide recommendations for how we can all

help adapt America's founding principles to a new century. Her new book is called Redefining Freedom,

thoughts on bridging divides and renewing the American promise at 250.

And Sophia Nelson joins me now. Welcome back to the News Hour. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for being here. Why do we need to redefine freedom?

Well, I think that the natural instinct at a 250 year celebration is to commemorate,

to have a big party for everybody to be jovial

and think about all the things we do well. We should do that. However, we're in a unique moment.

We have a divided country in a way that I've not seen in my lifetime. Governing ourselves in the 21st

century with an 18th century documents a little tricky.

And I don't want to throw it away. I want to refresh it. I want to do what Jefferson said.

I want to refresh the tree of liberty from time to time. And I think that's what I'm talking about.

You break it down into four pillars, and they are personal freedom, shared freedom, lived freedom, and

protected freedom. Why is it important to name those and define them? Well, I think freedom is

the best word in the American vocabulary. We all love it. It's a great word, right? But we got to

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