Liberty of choice

“ And the first of these, as already shown, is the preservation of man’s moral liberty, the power of moral choice, the liberty of turning to the right or to the left, of looking to God or from 'God, of taking the upward or the downward path. ”

“ He must follow one of them, but is not constrained to follow any one of them in particular: and precisely in this indetermination it is said that human liberty consists. In the third place, when the choice is made, there is the practical following out of the course fixed upon. ”

“ That which tends to the misery of man.
What you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing whatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and liberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of his choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation—we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us the nature of things does not seem to be a master—Nature has no will. ”

“ The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. ”

“ Without all doubt, it is the choice of the people that makes civil governors.—The people are the spring of all civil power, and they have a right to modify it as they please.
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Mankind being naturally equal according to the foregoing explanation, civil government, in its genuine intention, is an institution for maintaining that equality, by defending it against the encroachments of violence and tyranny. All the subordinations and distinctions in society previous to its establishment, it leaves as it found them, only confirming and protecting them. ”

“ The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. ”

“ And each individual of the race is privileged to make a free and voluntary choice of either condition; no one having the right to interfere with this personal liberty, by forbidding or prescribing wedlock to any properly qualified person. ”

“ Plausible self- seekers and theoretical die-hards will tell you of the loss of individual liberty. Answer this question also out of the facts of your own life. Have you lost any of your rights or liberty or constitutional freedom of action and choice? Turn to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, which I have solemnly sworn to maintain and under which your freedom rests secure. Read each provision of that Bill of Rights and ask yourself whether you personally have suffered the impairment of a single jot of these great assurances. I have no question in my mind as to what your answer will be. ”

“ What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society? ”

“ They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ Those from countries where government was relatively democratic, where individual liberty prevailed, where political, social, and economic conditions were conducive to contentment, were satisfied to keep the citizenship of their fatherlands. ”

“ WHAT, then, are the permanent Foundations, on which perfect Liberty can arise?—I answer, it can only arise on the Power of such a System of Manners and Principles effectually impressed on the human Mind, as may be an inward Curb to every inordinate Desire; or rather, such as may so frame and model the Human Heart, that its ruling Desires may correspond, coincide, or coalesce, with all the great and essential Appointments of public Law. ”

“ I do not understand the logic of those who consider the right to vote a less inalienable right than the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That right is as essential to the exercise of self-government, as self-government is essential to the enjoyment of liberty. ”

“ Whatever Means, therefore, are most effectual in curbing and subduing the selfish Desires of Man, are the most effectual Means of regulating his Actions, and establishing civil Liberty on its most permanent Foundations. ”

“ With all these, the greatest possible latitude in regard to morals, and all the liberty we desire. Now, if society gives us all these, and you must admit that it does, has it not done its entire duty? ”

“ Whose sons are safe?"
"No man's," was the answer of the gentleman in whose office we were sitting—"No man's—while there are such open doors to ruin as you may find at the 'Sickle and Sheaf.' Did not you vote the anti-temperance ticket at the last election?"
"I did," was the answer; "and from principle."
"On what were your principles based?" was inquired.
"On the broad foundations of civil liberty."
"The liberty to do good or evil, just as the individual may choose?" ”

“ If we ask in what precisely consists the greatest good of all, which should be the end of every system of legislation, we shall find it reduce itself to two main objects, liberty and equality—liberty, because all particular dependence means so much force taken from the body of the State, and equality, because liberty cannot exist without it. ”

“ Consider first, then, in any given case, “Are those in the minority seeking to keep or filch liberty from you, or only to obtain such liberty as is already yours? Are they seeking to set up equality of condition or inequality? ”

“ Virtuous choices gradually become the law of liberty. These facts are index fingers pointing toward large and loving, strenuous and sympathetic manhood. And toward such human types, as a matter of fact, the race has been moving. ”

“ No, these talents whatever they may be, must be cultivated and improved or increased just as far as they can be; for the manifestation of the giver’s glory,—the possessor’s honor and happiness; and society’s welfare: a triple obligation there is to do so; a triple reward is the consequence of doing so—and a triple penalty is involved in the neglect thereof. But how, plain common sense will ask, can this obligation be discharged without full and absolute liberty? ”

“ We wish liberty—that is to say, we demand for every human being the right and the means of doing that which pleases him, and of doing only that which pleases him; to satisfy integrally all his wants, without any other limits than natural impossibilities and the wants of neighbors equally respectable. ”

“ There is no event on which our felicity and usefulness more materially depends, and with regard to which, therefore, the freedom of choice and the exercise of our own understanding ought to be less infringed ”

“ At stake here, too, is the very application of the principles of our democracy: where our people make the choice; where the final judgment on the morality of their choices is left to the freedom of their conscience. ”

“ When he entered a societal group, controls were necessarily imposed. But our society--unlike most in the world--presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. ”

“ This renowned Declaration of Rights reads as follows:—
“Nature has made all men free and equal; the distinctions which are necessary for social order are founded alone on the public good.
“Man is born with inalienable and imprescriptible rights, such as the unshackled liberty of opinion, the care of his honor and life, the right of property, the complete control over his person, his industry, and all his faculties; the free expression of his opinion in every possible manner; the worship of the Almighty; and resistance against oppression. ”

“ For proof whereof let any man examine the clearest and acutest authors who have written for Liberty, or discourse with those who think Liberty a matter of experience, and he will see that they allow that the will follows the judgment of the understanding, and that when two objects are presented to man’s choice, one whereof appears better than the other, he cannot choose the worst—that is, cannot choose evil as evil. ”

“ It is an axiom that we should in legislating guide ourselves directly by considerations of utility and expediency. For abstract principles—I have in view here rights, justice, egalitarian equity, equality, liberty, chivalry, logicality, and such like—are not all of them guides to utility ”

“ We might, over and above all this, add, to what man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty. ”

“ Even local adherence to our slogans of liberty, democracy, consent-of-the-governed, and all the rest of our ecstatic vocabulary, no longer insulates or distinguishes us in the world. The upspringing democracies of the Old World, to which we have given example and inspiration as well as emancipation from old autocracies, swear by all these phrases as exuberantly as we, and may even outstrip us in the political incarnation of the ideals which hitherto we have regarded as so peculiarly our own! ”

“ From this he concluded,—and acted on that conclusion—that all men are created free and equal, and that the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. ”

“ But though the will of the people, be it what it may be, must prevail, the Whig claims absolute liberty in all matters of personal opinion and of conscience, and advocates the greatest amount of liberty procurable in social action. ”

“ In the building up of the state, the primitive need is sufficient power and permanency of control to make law supreme over the individual will. And where the personal wishes or rights, even of men, come in conflict with this initial step toward social order, those personal wishes and rights are ruthlessly sacrificed; not because individual liberty is ignored in the process of development, but rather because individual liberty can only be permanently secured by making it second to social order in sequence of evolution. ”

“ He exchanges the natural liberty to do and get what he can, a liberty limited by his relative strength, for a liberty at once limited and secured by the general will; he exchanges the mere possession of such things as he can get, a possession which is the effect of force, for a property founded on a positive title, on the guarantee of society. At the same time he becomes a moral agent. Justice instead of instinct becomes the guide of his actions. For the moral slavery to appetite he substitutes the moral freedom which consists in obedience to a self-imposed law. ”