Buried deep in President-Elect Barack Obama’s speech on Tuesday night was a stunning statement: “That’s the true genius of America: that America can change.” These seemingly innocuous words suggest a profound misreading of — or conscious effort to revise — our country’s history. They are also a rejection of our Founding Father’s tremendous contribution to the enduring cause of liberty.

All countries can and do change. In 1871, Germany became an Empire. In 1918, it changed from an Empire into a democracy. Fourteen years later, Hitler came to power and Germany morphed into a militaristic dictatorship, at war with its neighbors and its own Jewish population. After going through a period during which the country was split in two, half liberal-democratic and half communist, the country united in 1990 and is now a peaceful democracy. These kinds of profound changes take place everywhere all the time. There is nothing unique about America’s capacity to change.

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In fact, the Founding Fathers designed our Constitution so as to make it very difficult to bring about significant changes. New legislation requires majorities in both houses of Congress followed by a presidential signature. Constitutional amendments are even more difficult — the easiest method is for an amendment to pass both houses of Congress by two-thirds majorities and then be ratified by three-fourths of all state legislatures. This suggests the Founding Fathers were suspicious of quick and easy change.

The actual genius of America, and what makes our country unique, is precisely the opposite of change. It is that our country was founded on certain timeless principles, laid out in the Declaration of Independence and put into practice by the Constitution. These principles include the conviction that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, and to provide freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and equal protection under the law.