The Law That Saved the American Soul Is Now Under Attack

For 119 years, it has protected the places that define who we are. That era may be ending.

There is a kind of patriotism that doesn’t wave a flag or hold a press conference. It walks quietly into a canyon at dawn and listens. It watches the shadows climb down the face of a desert butte and knows, without needing to be told, that this too is part of the American story.

In 1906, we wrote that story into law.

The Antiquities Act was just a few paragraphs. A legal tool for a practical problem: looters were raiding ancient sites in the Southwest. So Congress gave the president the power to protect places of historic or scientific value quickly, unilaterally, and without having to ask for permission.

But what it became was something else. A kind of secular scripture. A promise that not everything in this country would be stripped, sold, or spoiled before someone had the chance to say no. Or better yet, to say yes.

Yes to the Grand Canyon, long before anyone thought it was worth saving.
Yes to Arches, to Zion, to Glacier Bay, to Stonewall, to Bears Ears.
Yes to the idea that some places…