Today, liberty and freedom are used almost interchangeably. In fact, a
modern American hears the term freedom more frequently because liberty has
become somewhat outmoded. The Founders viewed these two concepts as very
different. In their minds, man granted freedom to his fellow man, but liberty
came from a higher authority. Every human was endowed with natural rights and
the free exercise of those rights was called liberty. On the other hand, a
person released from slavery or indentured servitude became a free person.
The history of the world is not solely about rulers, it’s also about
people striving and fighting for liberty. Our sense of natural rights is deep inside
each of us. Even when rulers rule with an iron fist, liberty is kept alive
through stories
about heroes who fight against
oppression and win. Stories often remind society of first principles and give
hope until a leader comes along that can help them to recover their unalienable rights.
What did the Founders think about liberty? Here is what they said in
their own words.
“In
Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the
example … of charters of power granted by liberty.”—James Madison
“Safety
from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even
the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. To be
more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”—Alexander
Hamilton, Federalist 8
“They
who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty or safety.”—Benjamin Franklin
“If ye
love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the
animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your
counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and
posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”—Samuel
Adams
“[A] dangerous ambition more often lurks
behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the
forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road
to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who
have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun
their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues
and ending tyrants.”—Alexander Hamilton
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action
according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of
others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but
the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the
individual.”—Thomas Jefferson
“There
are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying
the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every
citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.”—James
Madison, Federalist 10
“Liberty,
once lost, is lost forever.”—John Adams
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