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From Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair,
Baltimore, April 18, 1864:
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
incompatible 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
incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s
throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the
wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as
the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a
definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today
among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love
liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from
under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and
bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems,
the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty [abolishing
slavery in the state]; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the
wolf’s dictionary, has been repudiated.
From letter by Saum Song Bo, American Missionary,
October, 1885
A paper was presented to me yesterday for
inspection, and I found it to be specially drawn up for subscription among my
countrymen toward the Pedestal Fund of the … Statue of Liberty… But the word
liberty makes me think of the fact that this country is the land of liberty for
men of all nations except the Chinese. I consider it an insult to us Chinese to
call on us to contribute toward building in this land a pedestal for a statue of
Liberty. That statue represents Liberty holding a torch which lights the
passage of those of all nations who come into this country. But are the Chinese
allowed to come? As for the Chinese who are here, are they allowed to enjoy
liberty as men of all other nationalities enjoy it? Are they allowed to go about
everywhere free from the insults, abuses, assaults, wrongs, and injuries from
which men of other nationalities are free?...
And this statue of Liberty is a gift from
another people who do not love liberty for the Chinese. [To} the Annamese and
Tonquinese Chinese {colonial subjects of the French empire in Indochina], …
liberty is as dear as to the French. What right have the French to deprive them
of their liberty?
Whether this statue against he Chinese or the
statue to Liberty will be the most lasting monument to tell future ages of the
liberty and greatness of this country, will be known only to future generations.
From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to
Andrew Johnson, 1865:
We the freedmen of Edisto Island, South
Carolina, have learned from you through Major General O. O. Howard… with deep
sorrow and painful hearts of the possibility of [the] government restoring these
lands to the former owners…
Here is where secession was born and nurtured.
Here is where we have toiled nearly all our lives as slaves and treated like
dumb driven cattle. This is our home, we have made these lands what they were,
we are the only true and loyal people that were found in possession of these
lands. We have been always ready to strike for liberty and humanity, yea to
fight if need be to preserve this glorious Union. Shall not we who are freedmen
and have always been true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by
others? … Are not our rights as a free people and good citizens of these United
States to be considered before those who were found in rebellion against this
good and just government?...
[Are] we who have been abused and oppressed for
many long years not to be allowed the privilege of purchasing land but be
subject to the will of these large land owners? God forbid. Land monopoly is
injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if government does
not make some provision by which we as freedmen can obtain a homestead, we have
not bettered our condition…
We look to you … for protection and equal
rights with the privilege of purchasing a homestead—a homestead right here in
the heart of South Carolina.
From speech of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians, in
Washington, D.C., 1879
I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is
done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do
not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by
white men… Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace
and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It
makes my heart sick when I remember all the… broken promises…
If the white man wants to live in peace with
the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men
alike. Give them the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow.
All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The
earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon
it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was
born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go
where he pleases…
When I think of our condition my heart is
heavy. I see men of my race treated as outlaws and driven from country to
country, or shot down like animals. I know that my race must change. We cannot
hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as
other men live…
Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to
stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own
teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and
act for myself—and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
From Eugene V. Debs’ speech to the jury before his
sentencing under the Espionage Act
In every age there have been a few heroic souls
who have been in advance of their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned,
persecuted, sometimes put to death… Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and
their compeers were the rebels of their day. …But they had the moral courage to
be true to their convictions…
William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton… and other leaders of the abolition movement who were
regarded as public enemies and treated accordingly, were true to their faith and
stood their ground… You are now teaching your children to revere their memories,
while all of their detractors are in oblivion.
This country has been engaged in a number of
wars and every one of them has been condemned by some of the people. The war of
1812 was opposed and condemned by some of the most influential citizens; the
Mexican War was vehemently opposed and bitterly denounced, even after the war
had been declared and was in progress, by Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner,
Daniel Webster… They were not indicted; they were not charged with treason…
I believe in the Constitution. Isn’t it
strange that we Socialists stand almost alone today in upholding and defending
the Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers… understood
that free speech, a free press and the right of free assemblage by the people
were fundamental principles in democratic government… I believe in the right of
free speech, in war as well as in peace.
From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics
(1898)
The spirit of personal independence in the
women of today is sure proof that a change has come… The radical change in the
economic position of women is advancing upon us… The growing individualization
of democratic life brings inevitable change to our daughters as well as our
sons… One of its most noticeable features is the demand in women not only for
their own money, but for their own work for the sake of personal expression.
Few girls today fail to manifest some signs of this desire for individual
expression.
Economic independence for women necessarily
involves a change in the home and family relation. But, if that change is for
the advantage of individual and race, we need not fear it. It does not involve
a change in the marriage relation except in withdrawing the element of economic
dependence, nor in the relation of mother to child save to improve it. But it
does involve the exercise of human faculty in women, in social service and
exchange rather than in domestic service solely… [Today], when our still
developing social needs call for an ever-increasing… freedom, the woman in
marrying becomes the house-servant, or at least the housekeeper, of the man…
When women stand free as economic agents, they will [achieve a] much better
fulfillment of their duties as wives and mothers and [contribute] to the vast
improvement in health and happiness of the human race.
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