Liberties

“ And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties, the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press, of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; ”

“ And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? ”

“ For true liberty cannot be conferred by Acts of Parliament or by decrees of princes, but must spring up from the knowledge, morality, and public virtue of our population. ... If therefore you would escape your present social and political bondage and benefit your race, you must bestir yourselves and make every sacrifice to build up the sacred temple of your own liberties. ”

“ Seeing, however, that many cling so obstinately to their own opinion in this matter as to imagine these modern liberties, cankered as they are, to be the greatest glory of our ago, and the very basis of civil life, without which no perfect government can be conceived. ”

“ Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. ”

“ Here we hope to be prospered and increased in knowledge, wisdom, and power; enabled to preserve our rights, and our liberties, as did our Revolutionary Fathers, when oppression became too onerous, and tyranny ranked too high. ”

“ These rights and liberties belong to each individual man as a grant from the Creator, which he can maintain in the face of any government, be it that of a monarch, of an aristocracy, or of a majority of the people. ”

“ ‘Lord love you, sir,’ he added, ‘they’re so fond of Liberty in this part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to market with ‘em. They’ve such a passion for Liberty, that they can’t help taking liberties with her. ”

“ We can afford no liberties with liberty itself. ”

“ Here, since I see that you are moved by the dignity of the man, and by the insult put upon him by this law, I will return to the assertion that I made at the beginning, that a kingly power is being erected, and your liberties entirely taken away by this law. ”

“ "Must a government be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence? ”

“ Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. ”

“ Liberty is that spirit which, in politics, repudiates absolutism, respects the minority, and weighs the protest of a single conscience with care; which, in jurisprudence, favours the common, limits the canon, and rejects the civil, law, suspecting those iron maxims to be the weapons of imperial wrong; that spirit which, in the judgment seat, assumes innocency and gives the benefit of the doubt; which, in social life, sides with weakness against strength, with the outcast against the oppressor; and which, in all conflicts of authority against reason, inclines to follow the inner guide. ”

“ Flourish of all the Musick, The Captives are set at
Liberty. Arcabon frees Amadis her self.
SONG.
Liberty! Liberty!
Ah how sweet is Liberty!
Arm, arm, the gen'rous Britons cry,
Let us live free, or let us die,
Trumpets sounding, Banners flying,
Braving Tyrants, Chains defying,
Arm, arm, the gen'rous Britons cry,
Let us live free, or let us die,
Liberty! Liberty! ”

“ Look to history, and when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world, and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who were yet free regarded liberty as their privilege, instead of regarding it as a principle. ”

“ The immortal document which proclaimed the independence of the country declared as self-evident truths that the Creator had endowed all men "with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men." ”

“ For the People: And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom, as much as any Body whomsoever; but I must tell you, That their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government, those Laws by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own. ”

“ No, sir, our respect to the constitution has another origin, it is the fact that it has been made to be an impregnable bulwark of Liberty, and of the rights of man! The spirit of liberty which pervades it, is the only source of its dignity and of its moral authority. ”

“ Liberty for each, for all, forever! ”

“ I have observed, that all the different kinds of Liberty run up into the general idea of self-government [50] .—The Liberty of men as agents is that power of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess.—Their Liberty as moral agents is their power of self-government in their moral conduct.—Their Liberty as religious agents is their power of self-government in religion.—And their Liberty, as members of communities associated for the purposes of civil government, is their power of self-government in all their civil concerns. ”

“ The Lord help us to accept universal liberty for this nation—boldly, immediately, unconditionally, that the sunlight of God’s favor may shine upon us once more and for ever! May our rulers and generals, and all Christians, accept the life-thought of freedom to all men as the talisman of triumph henceforth! ”

“ Nothing need be said to shew the value of the three kinds of liberty which I have distinguished under the names of Physical, Moral, and Religious Liberty. They are, without doubt, the foundation of all the happiness and dignity of men, as reasonable and moral agents, and the subjects of the Deity.—It is, in like manner, true of Civil Liberty, that it is the foundation of the whole happiness and dignity of men as members of civil society, and the subjects of civil government. ”

“ Liberty, justice, equality before the law, and self-government, are the normal dogmas of our political creed; to renounce them were to stultify ourselves. They are cornerstones in the temple we are building for the refuge of men ”

“ Freedom in state, freedom in church, freedom in religion, literature, commerce, government—freedom as boundless as the sunshine that fructifies the teeming earth! Freedom of thought necessitates freedom in government. ”

“ The development of individual liberty, and its reconciliation with social order, is one of the grandest of those developments of original antagonism into the ultimate harmony which go to make up civilization. ”

“ XV. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. ”

“ I find that not only civilization, but liberty, has a prodigious effect upon human life. It is, as it were, by the instinct of self-preservation that liberty is so passionately desired by the multitude. ”

“ The philosophes desired freedom of thought in religion, constitutional liberty, and the abolition of privilege of all kinds. They speculated as to the origins of political and social institutions and the laws of human progress. ”

“ Just as liberty finds itself between the two extremes of legal oppression and anarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two extremes, between the expression of dignity which bears witness to the domination exercised by the mind, and the voluptuous expression which reveals the domination exercised by instinct. ”

“ The love of freedom is in every human heart. Again recall the words of the Declaration of Independence—“all men are created equal ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, among which is liberty. ”

“ As liberty consists in the free exercise of our religion, the enjoyment of our rights, and the profits of our labour, with the protection of our persons and properties, it is a privilege of an immense value. ”

“ Bright, who loves to walk in the old ways of the Constitution, said forcibly in one of his great speeches, what many other people are every day saying less forcibly, that the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of personal liberty. ”

“ Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her “slaves” who hug their chains, and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honors both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit? ”

“ Everywhere the law reaches to the highest and reaches to the lowest, to protect all in their rights, and to restrain all from wrong; and over all hovers liberty,—that liberty for which our fathers fought and fell on this very spot, with her eye ever watchful, and her eagle wing ever wide outspread. ”

“ In one sense, indeed, sir, this is assuming an attitude of open resistance in favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty? The liberty of establishing their own opinions, in defiance of the opinions of all others; the liberty of judging and deciding exclusively themselves, in a matter in which others have as much right to judge and decide as they; the liberty of placing their own opinion above the judgment of all others, above the laws, and above the Constitution. This is their liberty, and this is the fair result of the proposition contended for by the honorable gentleman. ”

“ We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities—human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. ”

“ The mysteries of this sect arc asserted to be comprehended in the following summary.
Liberty and equality are the essential rights that man in his original and primitive perfection received from nature. Property struck the first blow at equality; political societies or governments were the first oppressors of liberty; the supporters of governments and property are the religious and civil laws; therefore to reinstate man in his primitive rites of equality and liberty they begin by destroying these. ”

“ Let your children lisp of Freedom in the cradle—let your death-bed be the school for fresh exertions—let every street of the city, and field of the country, be connected with thoughts, which liberty has made holy. Be warm in your cause, yet rational, and charitable, and tolerant—never let the oppressor grind you into justifying his conduct by imitating his meanness. ”

“ Aim at knowledge deep and varied: cherish sentiments of the largest and loftiest liberality; the character of the age demands it, Liberty commands it; and God and man are honored and glorified by it. And let your many privileges—great and important as many stimulate you to the highest and noblest resolves while they fill you with gratitude to your God, love for your country, and devotion to the thrice sacred cause of Liberty. ”

“ The gaze of the sons of liberty, everywhere, is upon us, anxiously, intently, upon us. They may see us fall in the struggle for our Constitution and government, but Heaven forbid that they should see us recreant. ”

“ It has been said, that the liberty for which I have pleaded, is “a right or power in every one [11] to act as he likes without any restraint.”—However unfairly this representation has been given of my account of liberty, I am ready to adopt it, provided it is understood with a few limitations.—Moral Liberty, in particular, cannot be better defined than by calling it “a power in every one to do as he likes.” ”

“ II. The object of all society ought to be the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are his liberty, his property, his security, and the resistance of oppression. ”

“ At present we have to note that our studies of liberty, in all its phases and applications, have forced us again and again to observe that there is no real liberty but that which is an affair of history, law, and institutions. ”