Political liberty

“ Political liberty as a theory upon which to speculate over a glass or two of wine in the cool of the evening was well enough, but political liberty as a reason for draining the country of blood and money any longer was quite another affair. ”

“ No bogus politicians were found among the patriots of the Revolution. Principles—not men were the political landmarks—not the seven principles of five loaves and two fishes but the heaven-born principles of eternal justice, truth, honesty, equality, freedom, love of country, patriotism, humanity, universal charity and pure benevolence—all harmoniously growing in rich clusters upon the tree of Liberty. ”

“ And you still call yourselves Democrats, and claim the confidence of the people by your fidelity to the great principle that popular liberty and free institutions must be secured by a strict limitation of the powers of government! ”

“ It is this Democratic doctrine of true liberty that has been the great curse of the Republic. It has poisoned our political life by leading the popular mind into channels of vicious logic, and debauching the hearts of the multitude with its artful defense of wrong. It has made man the enemy of man, and thus produced an irrepressible conflict. ”

“ It is a man's civil liberty, which is originally in its full force, and part of which he sacrifices when he enters into a state of society; and political liberty is that which he may, or may not acquire in the compensation he receives for it. ”

“ Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. ”

“ We tax our ingenuity to draw nice distinctions. We are told of political liberty — of religious liberty — of moral liberty. Yet, after all, is there more than one liberty; and these divisions, are they not the more and the less of the same thing? The provision we have referred to in our political institutions, as framed in accordance with the principle inherent in ourselves, insures to us all of free action that statues can insure. ”

“ How easy would it have been to lay broad and deep the foundations on which the political life of this Republic might have developed itself to the full realization of those sublime ideals of universal liberty, equal rights and impartial justice, which stand as the supreme guiding stars in the heart of every true friend of the human kind. ”

“ The people, a real sovereign; your institutions securing real freedom, because founded on the principles of self-government; union to secure national independence and the position of a power on earth; and all together, having no master but God; omnipotence not vested in any man, in any assembly,—and an open field to every honest exertion—because civil, political, and religious liberty is the common benefit to all, not limited but by itself (that is, by the unseen, but not unfelt, influence of self-given law) ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us suppress this rebellion, as I have no doubt we shall, and we may congratulate ourselves and the world upon the ultimate and final triumph of the principles of political freedom and self-government―a Government which is "of God and not of men," and under which, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, "all men are" in fact as well as in theory, "created equal and ordained by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ Whatsoever is steadfast in just political principles; whatsoever is permanent in the structure of human society; whatsoever there is which can derive an enduring character from being founded on deep-laid principles of constitutional liberty and on the broad foundations of the public will,--all these unite to entitle this instrument to be regarded as a permanent constitution of government. ”

“ Without these habits and powers, a free constitution can neither be worked nor preserved; as is exemplified by the too-often transitory nature of political freedom in countries where it does not rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. ”

“ One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. ”

“ And, if the evils which are inseparable from the good of political liberty are to be checked, if the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political as they now deal with scientific questions; ”

“ In the proceedings of the lower house relative to this subject, we find a sententious description of political liberty, which might serve as the motto of all Constitutionalists. "Who," says their address, "who are a free people? Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised, but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled, that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised." ”

“ The maxim which the French legislators learned in this school was, that political liberty is an end, and not a means; that it is not merely valuable as the great safe-guard of order, of property, 71and of morality, but that it is in itself a high and exquisite happiness to which order, property, and morality ought without one scruple to be sacrificed. ”

“ LIBERTY AND EQUALITY He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either. ”

“ There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism. ”

“ This means either that we make our estimates of the condition of a country independently of the presence or absence of political liberty, or that sometimes, under conditions not indicated, we should regard freedom from oppression as essential to a prosperous community, and sometimes not. ”

“ 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; ”

“ Among these requisites, unalterable by changing conditions of society, are individual liberty, freedom of labor, of human development, rights of conscience, equality of the States, distribution of political powers into independent executive, legislative and judicial departments, and a careful restriction of those powers to public uses only, the healthy action of concurrent majorities, a careful safe-guarding that the power which makes the laws and the power which applies them shall not be in the same hands, and local self-government. ”

“ That is why, says the philosopher, all parties, without exception, as they affect power, are varieties of absolutism, and there will only be liberty for the citizens, order for society, union among the workers, when the renunciation of authority will have replaced in the political catechism faith in authority. ”

“ By liberty was meant protection against the tyranny of political rulers.' This struggle has been carried on for ages, until it has now come to be an axiom, universally received in civilized nations, that government is instituted solely for the good of the governed. ”

“ Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere with others. ”

“ All government must for the present be provisional—Danger of attempting political reconstruction before spiritual—Politically what is wanted is Dictatorship, with liberty of speech and discussion—Such a dictatorship would be a step towards the separation of spiritual and temporal power—The motto of 1830, Liberty and Public Order—Liberty should be extended to Education—Order demands centralization—Intimate connexion of Liberty with Order. ”

“ The whole realm of the possessive impulses, and of the use of force to which they give rise, stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. ”

“ Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and, through themselves, us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights: 'tis ours only to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. ”

“ The highest political watchword is not Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, nor yet Solidarity, but Service. ”

“ Secondly, the end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man: which rights are—liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression. Thirdly, the nation is the 346source of all sovereignty: no body of men, no individual, can then be entitled to any authority, which is not derived from it. ”

“ I hold, moreover, sir that inasmuch as every man is, by force of circumstances beyond his own control, a subject of government somewhere, he is, by the very constitution of human society, entitled to share equally in the conferring of political power on those who wield it, if he is not disqualified by crime; that in a despotic government he ought to be allowed arms, in a free government the ballot or the open vote, as a means of self-protection against unendurable oppression. ”

“ We offer it to you—a Union based upon universal liberty, impartial justice and equal rights, upon sacred pledges faithfully fulfilled, upon the faith of the Nation nobly vindicated; a Union without a slave and without a tyrant; a Union of truly democratic States; a Union capable of ripening to full maturity all that is great and hopeful in the mind and heart of the American people; a Union on every square foot of which free thought may shine out in free utterance; a Union between the most promising elements of progress, between the most loyal impulses in every section of this vast Republic ”

“ An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. ”

“ It is in the nature of liberties and rights, abstractly considered, to be insubordinate and to conflict both one with another and, perhaps, with the common weal. If the chief purpose of a democratic political system is merely the preservation of such rights, democracy becomes an invitation to local, factional, and individual ambitions and purposes. ”

“ Here, where the first blood of the Revolution was shed, let the last effort be made for that which is the greatest blessing obtained by the Revolution, a free and united government. Sir, in our endeavors to maintain our existing forms of government, we are acting not for ourselves alone, but for the great cause of constitutional liberty all over the globe. We are trustees holding a sacred treasure, in which all the lovers of freedom have a stake. ”

“ Now we pretend to say that our government was thus formed by the choicest wisdom and patriotism of the world, with the largest liberty in view, under the restraint of law, giving equitable privilege to all its citizens, and so balancing its different departments that they are mutually a defence. We pretend to claim for our government the loftiest purpose, the most comprehensive views, and the best practical results. We claim for it justice, equality, and power. It does not stand out--a thing distinct from the people and the states. ”

“ You want the rights and liberties of the citizen protected! Then let us have the Union and peace restored upon the basis of equal justice to all men; let us have a country purged of those abnormities which shun the light of free discussion; let the natural rights of man be held sacred; let us have a Republic firmly established upon complete harmony between our social institutions and the fundamental principles underlying our political system,—and the rights and liberties of the citizen will no longer be in danger! ”

“ Here was a splendid example of that real freedom on the one hand, and perfect security on the other, which are the result of our constitutional monarchy, and which all the despotism and republicanism of the world cannot obtain elsewhere, let them go on as long as they may, executing each other in the name of order, or cutting each other's throats in the name of liberty. ”

“ Shall we not rather take the place to which we are entitled, as the leaders, rather than the followers, in the customs of society, turn back the tide of aristocratic inroads, and carry through the whole, not only of civil and political but of social and domestic life, the true principles of democratic freedom and equality? ”

“ We wish liberty, and we believe its existence incompatible with the existence of any power whatsoever, whatever its origin and form—whether it be elected or imposed, monarchical or republican—whether inspired by divine right or by popular right, by anointment or universal suffrage. ”

“ If peace and unanimity are cherished, and the equalization of liberty, and the equity and energy of law maintain by harmony and justice, the present representative government may stand for ages, a luminous monument of republican wisdom, virtue, and integrity. ”