Liberty pole

“ It is possible that not all the people were quite clear in their minds what that "liberty" might mean; but whatever it was, they wanted it. England required nothing more of her colonies than other nations required of theirs. The colonies asked nothing of England that would not be granted to-day as a matter of course. The difficulty was that the mother country was living in the eighteenth century, while the colonists were looking forward into the nineteenth. A demand for liberty was in the air. The pole on which a flag was hung was not called a flag pole, but a liberty pole. ”

“ We live by our emotions, the beasts by their appetites—a material distinction. Now, the condition of the Poles was perfectly adapted to the quickening of the emotional parts. Shorten time, you make love a precious ecstasy; restrict liberty, freedom is a lust—none the worse for being lawful. No Pole knows how long he may have to live: Russia or phthisis will have him late or soon. What he pursues, then, must be fleeting—imagine with what rapture he takes it to his breast! ”

“ When it became known that they were at the tavern, a mob gathered before it on Market Street, and made their sentiments apparent by raising a liberty pole, the emblem everywhere in the disturbed districts of disaffection toward the national government. A streamer was fastened to the pole on which were inscribed the watchwords of the Insurgents:
“Liberty and no Excise. ”

“ But the Poles must also understand to the full their responsibility to the world at large and to the liberty of other nations, and give up the game of reactionary Realpolitik through which, in the past, the honourable name of Pole has only too often been unworthily associated in the political life of Austria and Russia, with the sad activities of the unprincipled politician. ”

“ The Republics of that day were, for the most part, so governed as to reconcile men with the less opprobrious vices of monarchy. Poland was a State made up of centrifugal forces. What the nobles called liberty was the right of each of them to veto the acts of the Diet, and to persecute the peasants on his estates—rights which they refused to surrender up to the time of the partition, and thus verified the warning of a preacher spoken long ago: "You will perish, not by invasion or war, but by your infernal liberties." ”

“ But consider, sir, what really caused the political downfall of Poland and what is blighting France, which before our eyes is falling apart like a barrel without hoops? A second thought which often comes to my mind is that liberty crossing the boundaries set by national prosperity and safety is necessary only for rogues. ”

“ He, too, like Sigismund I, wished to rule peaceably over the goats as well as over the sheep.
When we turn from the kings to the nation, we meet with the same broad-minded liberality and tolerance. The Polish nation of the sixteenth century loved liberty no less than at any other period of its history. Liberty constituted the foundation and was an essential characteristic of all its institutions, political and social. The Polish nobility worked and fought strenuously for its political rights and privileges, and having secured them, guarded them jealously. ”

“ They cannot assert, that the Polish revolution cost more dearly than that of France to the interests and feelings of multitudes of men. But the cold and subordinate light in which they look upon the one, and the pains they take to preach up the other of these revolutions, leave us no choice in fixing on their motives. Both revolutions profess liberty as their object; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to order; the other from order to anarchy. The first secures its liberty by establishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion of its monarchy. ”

“ Such was the first case of the exercise of that liberum veto of which we hear so much in subsequent Polish history, and which is certainly the greatest curiosity, in the shape of a political institution, with which the records of any nation present us. From that time every Pole walked over the earth a conscious incarnation of a power such as no mortal man out of Poland possessed—that of putting a spoke into the whole legislative machinery of his country, and bringing it to a dead lock by his own single obstinacy ”

“ Freedom in the end means anarchy. 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 271 like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in Esuch a State, can liberty have any limit? ”

“ Is this nation of twenty millions of freemen, so richly endowed with all the faculties, resources, and artificial means which constitute power, unable to preserve its national existence, independence, and liberty, without help from the contaminating hand of tyranny, without sacrificing its honor by basely singing hosannas to the imperial butcher of Poland, at the very moment when the blood of the people of Kosciuszko and Pulaski cries to Heaven and mankind for vengeance? ”

“ But I need not say to you, and through you to the convention, that you have my hearty sympathy.
I am with the Liberty Party because it is the only party in the country which is striving openly and honestly to reduce to practice the great truths which lie at the foundation of our republic: all men created equal, endowed with rights inalienable; the security of these rights the only just object of government; the right of the people to alter or modify government until this great object is attained. ”

“ How, then, can any man, in the name of Popular Sovereignty, vote another to be a slave? How, then, can any man, in this name, assert property in his fellow-man? By what excuse, with what reason, on what argument can any such thing be done, without first denying all that is true and sacred? Liberty, which is the active principle of Popular Sovereignty,—Equality, which is twin sister of Liberty,—and Justice, which sets bounds to all that men do on earth,—these are the irresistible enemies of Slavery, each and all of which must be trampled out by any rule under which man can be made a slave. ”

“ We are denied the right of locomotion, freedom of speech, the right of petition, the liberty of the press, the right peaceably to assemble together to protest against oppression and plead for liberty—at least in thirteen States of the Union. If we venture, as avowed and unflinching abolitionists, to travel South of Mason and Dixon's line, we do so at the peril of our lives. ”

“ Is it not likely to be true that the moral tone of the republic —our estimation of constitutional liberty—will be lessened by the creation of a body of civilized people over whom our flag waves as an emblem of power only? ”

“ Coming to us from any other land, the cry for freedom sent through American bosoms a thrilling emotion. We stopped not to inquire who they were that would be free. If they were men, we knew they had a right to liberty. No matter how the yoke had been fastened on them,—whether by inheritance, or conquest, or political compromise,—we felt that it ought to be broken. And although to break it the whole social fabric of their oppressors must be overturned, still we said, Let the yoke be broken! ”

“ Whenever you take Freedom's sacred name into your lips—whenever you unfurl the standard of partial liberty—you stand self-condemned. Despots keep men's minds in ignorance, that the voice of slavery and abject dependance may not be heard even in its defence. ”

“ That Polish love of liberty manifested itself in the hard, early days of the American Revolution when Polish freedom fighters such as Kosciuszko and Pulaski stood with us for independence. They knew the profound truth that freedom's cause is universal, that in struggling for our freedom they were working for Poland's freedom and for all mankind's. They knew that once America had fired "the shot heard 'round the world" no tyrant could ever again rest easy. ”

“ Stackpole. "America shouldn't dress up poles with liberty caps, till all who walk under are free to wear them. She cannot boast that the breath of her air and the breath of freedom are one."
"Can England?" said Fleda, gently "when her own citizens are not free from the horrors of impressment?" ”

“ The spread eagle must fold his foolish wings and be less of a peacock; must keep his wings to carry the thunderbolt when he is commanded. We must realize our rhetoric and our rituals. Our national flag [531] is not affecting, as it should be, because it does not represent the population of the United States, but some Baltimore or Chicago or Cincinnati or Philadelphia caucus; not union or justice, but selfishness and cunning. If we never put on the liberty-cap until we were freemen by love and self-denial, the liberty-cap would mean something. ”

“ From that chaos whence under, a despotism like the Austrian, would spring the most frightful excesses of anarchy and crime, a population of freemen peacefully and quietly develops the highest form of civil order—the broadest extent of liberty and security. ”

“ When we draw aside the veil of words and professions, when we attend to what is done and not to what is said, we shall find in the present age of our country, that liberty is only a cant term of faction, and freedom of speaking and acting, used only to serve the private interests of a party. ”

“ The fact of two poles, of two forces, centripetal and centrifugal, is universal, and each force by its own activity develops the other. Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience. "Lynch-law" prevails only where there is greater hardihood and self-subsistency in the leaders. ”

“ Here also are men who have come out of the Whig party, weary of its many professions and its little performance, and especially revolting at its recent sinister course with regard to Freedom, believing that in any devotion to Human Rights they cannot err. Here also, in solid legion, is the well-tried band of the Liberty Party, to whom belongs the praise of first placing Freedom under the guardianship of a special political organization, whose exclusive test was opposition to Slavery. ”

“ Do not expect from despots a large share of liberty. Break your own shackles, all of you Polands that may be! Make sure of the future by your own exertions. Do not hope that your chain will forge itself into the key of freedom. ”

“ The Liberty Bell is the most venerated symbol of patriotism in the United States; its fame as an emblem of liberty is worldwide. In the affections of the American people today it overshadows even Independence Hall, although veneration for the latter began much earlier. Its history, a combination of facts and folklore, has firmly established the Liberty Bell as the tangible image of political freedom. ”

“ Look at the Chicago platform or candidate as you will, and you are constantly brought back to Slavery as the animating impulse. Look at the Baltimore platform or candidate, and you are constantly brought back to Liberty as the animating impulse. And thus again Slavery and Liberty stand face to face,—the slave-ship against the Mayflower. ”

“ That there is shameful despotism exercised by the present ruling powers all must allow; but that peace, individual liberty, and great commercial prosperity now reign in Poland is equally obvious. In the days which are popularly denominated those of Polish independence the nobility were always divided into bitter factions. Revolutions were as frequent as they are to-day in South America or Mexico, and the strongest party disposed of the crown, ruling amid tumult and bloodshed. ”

“ Those who had been for some years habitually extolling liberty and self-government as the normal conditions of progress, who had been sympathising warmly with every Liberal movement, whether at home or abroad, and who had put forward a voluntary federation of independent Communes as the ideal State organism, could not well frown on the political aspirations of the Polish patriots. ”

“ Where has a greater love for liberty been shown, or a more noble struggle made for its preservation than in Poland? And in our own country, it is a matter of history, that in no portion of it has the spirit of freedom so fervently developed itself as in the Southern States, nor has any portion been found more constantly and effectually battling against power. Two administrations have been overthrown since the constitution went into operation, and it has been Southern talent, and Southern energy, which have accomplished it. ”

“ The fate of a nation is in your hands. The sea is no more. The world has become a whispering gallery. And such a world cannot remain half slave and half free. It is for you to decide whether your half shall sink again into the abyss of centuries of human martyrdom and human tyranny.
“I warn you that the fight between autocracy and democracy has just begun. Poland attempted to establish a free commonwealth in Central Europe. She was ground to powder between imperial powers. The one big issue in this world today is the might of kings against the liberties of the people. ”

“ By 'liberty,' as thus used, is meant something more than freedom from physical restraint or imprisonment. It means freedom, not merely to go wherever one may choose, but to do such acts as he may judge best for his interest not inconsistent with the equal rights of others ”

“ Through our course in their education, we have their knowledge that only the men, who are to be its first members, can create a new political society of men, which is exactly what any American nation is. “Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.” So said the letter which went from Philadelphia with the proposed Articles whose later adoption created the new nation and vested the delegated and enumerated national powers of its government to interfere with the liberty of its citizens, (1 Ell. Deb. 17.) ”