Historical Statements On Liberty
Given the recent attacks and erosions on our liberties under the guise of safety, national security and asserted executive authority to act reprehensibly, I thought I would do a little searching for profound statements regarding the notions of Liberty, with a specific reference to liberty in the US.
“As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is “inseparable” from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.” - Gertrude Himmelfarb (b. 1922), U.S. Historian.
"Human beings use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts." - Voltaire
"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders." - Mark Twain
“On the morning of 11 September 2001, almost 3,000 Americans had their civil liberties terminated.”- The Patirot Post: The Conservative Journal of Record… that also printed the following in the same issue: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice." - George Washington
“When the U.S. Constitution was written, Yale and Harvard were still little Christian colleges, not yet big universities; Benjamin Franklin was puttering with electricity, which nobody foresaw would transform home life, communication, and everything else; air travel was hardly even a dream; modern weapons of mass murder weren't even imagined; and the first version of King Kong hadn't yet been filmed. How could this quaint document have relevance to our world today? A fair question. Without treating it as Holy Writ, we can recognize that it embodied a sound principle: the division of power. Like an even older and quainter document, the Magna Carta, its distant ancestor, it recognized the danger of concentrating arbitrary power in the hands of too few men, especially one man. The narrow specifics differ, which is why each generation's passions sound quaint to the next; but the principle is always the same.” - Joseph Sobran
"The framers of our Constitution believed that the judicial branch should be removed from politics and that its only goal should be the fair and impartial administration of justice. But in the last few months, the confirmation of a judicial nominee has become a spectacle of misrepresentation and single-issue politics. To allow this unprecedented practice to become the rule would jeopardize the integrity and independence of the American system of justice." -Ronald Reagan
"The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state." Ludwig Von Mises
"To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent idealsthat is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him." - Honore de Balzac
"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." - Samuel Adams
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy
"[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." - Benjamin Franklin
"The aim of art, the aim of a life, can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily." - Albert Camus
"The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people." - Thomas Jefferson
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. As enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"'Trust-me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties." - Ronald Reagan
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power." - General Douglas MacArthur
“Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power” - James Madison
“Liberty requires opportunity to make a livinga living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.” - FDR
“... liberty is the one thing no man can have unless he grants it to others” - Ruth Benedict, Anthropologist
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” - Thomas Jefferson
“When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.” - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosopher
“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” - William Hazlitt, Essayist
“I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its “successful experiment” that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.”- Andrew Jackson
“For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?” - 1 Corinthians 10:29
“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.” - James Madison
“The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”- Billings Learned Hand
“The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.” - Abraham Lincoln
“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” Edmund Burke, Philosopher
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty... power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.” - Wendell Phillps, Abolitionist
“What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.” - James Madison
“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name--liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names--liberty and tyranny.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessingsgive us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else!… Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”- Patrick Henry
“Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.” - James Fenimore Cooper, Novelist
January 29, 2006
“As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is “inseparable” from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.” - Gertrude Himmelfarb (b. 1922), U.S. Historian.
"Human beings use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts." - Voltaire
"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders." - Mark Twain
“On the morning of 11 September 2001, almost 3,000 Americans had their civil liberties terminated.”- The Patirot Post: The Conservative Journal of Record… that also printed the following in the same issue: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice." - George Washington
“When the U.S. Constitution was written, Yale and Harvard were still little Christian colleges, not yet big universities; Benjamin Franklin was puttering with electricity, which nobody foresaw would transform home life, communication, and everything else; air travel was hardly even a dream; modern weapons of mass murder weren't even imagined; and the first version of King Kong hadn't yet been filmed. How could this quaint document have relevance to our world today? A fair question. Without treating it as Holy Writ, we can recognize that it embodied a sound principle: the division of power. Like an even older and quainter document, the Magna Carta, its distant ancestor, it recognized the danger of concentrating arbitrary power in the hands of too few men, especially one man. The narrow specifics differ, which is why each generation's passions sound quaint to the next; but the principle is always the same.” - Joseph Sobran
"The framers of our Constitution believed that the judicial branch should be removed from politics and that its only goal should be the fair and impartial administration of justice. But in the last few months, the confirmation of a judicial nominee has become a spectacle of misrepresentation and single-issue politics. To allow this unprecedented practice to become the rule would jeopardize the integrity and independence of the American system of justice." -Ronald Reagan
"The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state." Ludwig Von Mises
"To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent idealsthat is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him." - Honore de Balzac
"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." - Samuel Adams
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy
"[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." - Benjamin Franklin
"The aim of art, the aim of a life, can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily." - Albert Camus
"The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people." - Thomas Jefferson
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. As enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
"'Trust-me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties." - Ronald Reagan
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power." - General Douglas MacArthur
“Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power” - James Madison
“Liberty requires opportunity to make a livinga living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.” - FDR
“... liberty is the one thing no man can have unless he grants it to others” - Ruth Benedict, Anthropologist
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” - Thomas Jefferson
“When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.” - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosopher
“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” - William Hazlitt, Essayist
“I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its “successful experiment” that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.”- Andrew Jackson
“For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?” - 1 Corinthians 10:29
“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.” - James Madison
“The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”- Billings Learned Hand
“The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.” - Abraham Lincoln
“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” Edmund Burke, Philosopher
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty... power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.” - Wendell Phillps, Abolitionist
“What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.” - James Madison
“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name--liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names--liberty and tyranny.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessingsgive us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else!… Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”- Patrick Henry
“Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.” - James Fenimore Cooper, Novelist
January 29, 2006
posted by Jim Downey at 6:57 PM
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