Some Foundations of Freedom

Here are some sentences from several sources on an exceedingly important subject: “The history of liberty,” said Woodrow Wilson, “is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.” ¹

“Freedom is not a gift,” said Thomas O’Shaughnessy, “it must be earned … Others can no more give us freedom than they can give us knowledge…Man must qualify himself for freedom before he can be free…If he chooses (lawless) liberty it robs him of his freedom…The price of freedom is mastery over passion and ignorance…In every age the oppressed cry out for liberty, but no government or man-made statutes can give it to them. They alone can give it to themselves, through obedience to the Divine statutes, and respect for justice and the rights of man…No man can be free until he conquers himself.” ² Everyone has an obligation to conquer himself. Freedom without self-control is a frightening freedom. “Our nation was founded as an experiment in human liberty,” said John Foster Dulles. “Its institutions reflect the belief of our founders that men had their origin and destiny in God; that they were endowed by Him with inalienable rights and had duties prescribed by moral law, and that (governments and) human institutions ought primarily to help men develop their God-given possibilities.”

“Every man,” said Dr. Lyman Abbott, “has a right and…the duty to become all that he can become. The goal…was not reached until our fathers had framed a Constitution to secure liberty under law”³ _ a Constitution given under the guidance and inspiration of Almighty God, and anyone who would eliminate God from our lives, publicly or privately, is undermining the foundations of freedom.

From Patrick Henry comes this sober reminder: “A (low) state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. 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,… It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.”