What Is Liberty? By Mary Smith *** Contents George Washington - Farewell Address, September 17, 1796 ......................... 2 Billings Learned Hand – The Spirit of Liberty Speech, May 21, 1944 ............ 5 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn – Harvard Address, June 8, 1978 ............................... 6 Freedom or Liberty ...........................................................................................8 It cannot be emphasized too strongly that liberty is only possible with a strong set of beliefs and moral standards. This means that man has to adhere to selfrestrictive rules-moral rules-in order to keep his freedom. When there is lack of such internal checks, owing to lack of education or to stereotyped education, then external pressure or even tyranny becomes necessary to check unsocial drives. Since within each of us lie the seeds of both democracy and totalitarianism, the struggle between the democratic and the totalitarian attitude is fought repeatedly by each individual during his lifetime. His particular view of himself and of his fellow men will determine his political creed. Coexisting with man's wish for liberty and maturity are destructiveness, hate, the desire for power, resistance to independence, and the wish to retreat into irresponsible childhood. Democracy appeals only to the adult side of man; fascism and totalitarianism tempt his infantile desires. [Source: A. M. Meerloo, M. D. The Rape of the Mind, The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing. 1956. Pages 231, 236] *** George Washington - Farewell Address, September 17, 1796 In 1796, as his second term in office drew to a close, President George Washington chose not to seek re-election, with the view to avoid the precedent his conduct would set for future presidents. He feared that if he were to die while in office, Americans would view the presidency as a lifetime appointment. Instead, he decided to step down from power, thus establishing the standard of a two-term limit that would eventually be enshrined in the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution.1 Washington informed the American people of his retirement in a public letter that would come to be known as his “Farewell Address.”1 He reminded them that the “independence and liberty” the nation currently enjoyed was the result of the “common dangers, sufferings, and successes” they had experienced together in the American Revolution and early years of the republic. To safeguard their hard-won system of republican government in a federal union, the country had to remain united.2 George Washington’s Farewell Address to the people of the United States appeared in newspapers across the nation. The address was never intended to be spoken; it was planned as a printed piece that would reach thousands of Americans. It appeared first on September 19, 1796, in Claypoole’s American https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/georgewashington-s-farewelladdress?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwnK60BhA9EiwAmpHZw_UxmwYR0QvdyY0u_VJaEZUOPt OzSqk0UnKZV256UNb58qeB3j90RBoC8G0QAvD_BwE#3 2 Washington's farewell address. New York, New York Public Library, 1935. pg. 105; 136. Courtesy of the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 1 Daily Advertiser of Philadelphia. The document emphasizes the importance of liberty and is a plea for the maintenance of the union. It also warns against political strife and foreign entanglement. For those reasons, it was read in the House of Delegates on Washington’s birthday from 1899 until 1984, and it continues to be read annually in the U.S. Senate. It is as relevant today as it ever was.3 At the time of his Address, George Washington had been a two-terms President under a radical new Constitution that he knew could change the world by fostering a new idea of government founded on freedom and human dignity. Washington’s Farewell Address is a document that has influenced government leaders for several generations. The historic address emphasizes the role of the American Constitution as an instrument that heralded the new phase of selfgovernment. George Washington’s Address stressed that the Preamble to the Constitution, a paragraph of fifty-two words, appealed for a new kind of justice that would respect the most precious birthright, liberty. 4 George Washington was aware of human imperfections. He also knew that the Constitution is susceptible to party strife, greed, self-interest and foreign influence. The Farewell Address emphasized the right of the citizens to elect their government, but once in power, people would have the duty to obey the established regime. George Washington also stressed the importance of opposing innovations brought about by the government, with great care. [In the year 2024, opposition to government is often manifested as riots through the streets of the USA and Western Europe. Unbridled freedom rather than liberty is expressed in countries that were once dominated by genuine democracy and comprehension of liberty.] The paragraph below is an excerpt from the historic Address. 4 ''Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.'' National Unity ''The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is a main pillar of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.'' The Law George Washington’s Farewell Address Published by Virginia Museum of History and Culture. https://virginiahistory.org/learn/george-washingtons-farewelladdress#:~:text=This%20is%20%E2%80%9Ca%20main%20pillar,artifices%20employed%2C%20to %20weaken%20in 4 Jeremiah J. Mahoney. FARWELL ADDRESS: A LESSON FROM 1976. The New York Times. February 20, 1983. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/20/archives/farwell-address-a-lesson-from1976.html 3 ''The basis of our political systems the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.'' Changes in Government ''Toward the preservation of your Government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular opposition to its acknowledged authority, but that you resist with care the spirit of innovation, however specious the pretexts. Liberty itself ... with powers properly distributed and adjusted, is its surest guardian.' 'Political Party Spirit” An important message included in the Farewell Address, is its call for neutrality in foreign affairs. The main cause for this request was to counteract Jefferson’s adoration of France. Washington and Hamilton were horrified by the anarchy and atheism of the French Revolution, and the president was angered by a French envoy to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt, who had been sent to influence American policies. Specifically, “Citizen Genêt” had been sent to promote American support for France’s wars with Spain and England. Following decades of experience in dealing with the French and with the British during the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars, and during his presidency, George Washington had developed an uncanny ability to foresee entanglements.3 George Washington’s vision of a Free America, was that of a country free of the “frequent controversies” that plagued Europe. Washington suggested that Americans should “steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.” He mentioned his Neutrality Proclamation of 1793 that he issued when France declared war on England: “[I] had a right to take… and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position.” Thus, the American President recognized the importance of protecting his citizens’ liberty by insulating it from the deleterious influences of countries which were mostly dominated by abuse of power. George Washington’s visions guaranteed America’s liberty for an extended period. After World War Two, the interaction with the European politics and culture contributed to the adulteration of the conceptual liberty. On 26 May 2015 at the Washington Library, Virginia Senator, Tim Kaine, 5 discussed George Washington as a leader. He analyzed Washington’s lasting legacy and its continuous impact on today’s Senate. Tim Kaine emphasized the importance of reading George Washington’s Farewell Address on the First President’s birthday. In 2015, Kaine reminded the listeners of the dangers posed by divisions between the two Parties. He also emphasized George Washington’s 5 https://vimeo.com/121292907 recommendation for the unity of the country’s citizens, and his opposition to foreign entanglements. George Washington promoted good relations with foreign nations but opposed internal interventions in other countries. [Today’s American ambitions of maintaining the Superpower status breed numerous involvements abroad, often, with deleterious results,] Billings Learned Hand – The Spirit of Liberty Speech, May 21, 1944 Billings Learned Hand was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. From 1924 to 1961, he served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.6 On May 21, 1944, Learned Hand addressed almost one and a half million people in Central Park, New York, at the annual “I Am an American Day” event, where newly naturalized citizens swore the Pledge of Allegiance. His speech started by stating that all Americans were immigrants arriving to the shores of America seeking liberty: “We sought liberty; freedoms from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves…. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.” Hand's use of religious overtones, suggests that the most challenging aspect of the speech was that the spirit of liberty must entertain doubt. Judicature magazine published by Bolch Judicial Institute7 (Duke Law School) makes an interesting comment regarding the message of “Spirit of Liberty,” which was apparently foreshadowed by an earlier address Hand had delivered in Philadelphia in 1930. The speech was entitled “Sources of Tolerance” (and originally published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review). In that address, Hand identified two competing concepts of liberty: one Jeffersonian, the other Hamiltonian. Jefferson eschewed any form of authority; he was in favor of unbridled “free expression of the individual.” Learned Hand considered Jefferson’s opinion to be ill-equipped to deal with modern American life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand D. Brooks Smith. Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty: A Lesson for Our Times. Vol. 105 No. 3 (2021). https://judicature.duke.edu/articles/learned-hands-spirit-of-liberty-a-lesson-for-our-times/ 6 7 Learned Hand also found fault with the Hamiltonian vision of liberty. He viewed the Hamiltonian vision as limiting “the possibility of the individual expression of life on the terms of him who has to live it.” “Jefferson is dead, yet [t]he victory is not all Hamilton’s.” In his 1930 speech, Learned Hand invoked “that spirit of liberty without which life is insupportable. . . .” In essence, Learned Hand’s speeches were calling upon his fellow Americans to look for relationships that grew beyond simple tolerance. He summoned men and women to listen to one another. He saw mutual understanding as a value that allows the human race to overcome its desire to realize only narrow selfinterest.7 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn – Harvard Address, June 8, 19788 A great deal has been written about Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and his remarkable contribution to the world literature. This essay is not about his biography but rather an analysis of his views on liberty and freedom. A few words, however, should be said here about his unique fortitude and courage to continue writing despite a regime that refused to publish his creative work. Christopher Hitchens9 wrote about Solzhenitsyn, “Every now and then it happens. The state or the system encounters an individual who, bafflingly, maddeningly, absurdly, cannot be broken. Should they manage to survive, such heroes have a good chance of outliving the state or the system that so grossly underestimated them… Solzhenitsyn lived “as if.” Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on “as if” he were a free citizen, “as if” he had the right to study his own country’s history, “as if” there were such a thing as human dignity.” As Learned Hand said it in his 1944 speech, liberty is something present in one’s heart; if it is not there, no government or constitution can give it to a human being. And Alexandr Solzhenitsyn lived with liberty in his heart, despite his experience in the Gulag; despite being released on the very day that Stalin died, and then to have developed cancer and known the whole rigor and misery of a Soviet-era isolation hospital.9 In 1974, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and flown to West Germany. He moved to the United States with his family in 1976 and continued to write there. He was turned away from the White House, on Henry Kissinger’s advice, by President Gerald Ford. But rather than denounce this Republican collusion with Brezhnev, he gave his famous Harvard Address8 in 1978. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A World Split Apart. Harvard Address Delivered on June 8, 1978. Christopher Hitchens. The Man Who Kept On Writing. Alexander Solzhenitsyn lived as if there were such a thing as human dignity. Slate Magazine, August 04, 2008, 10:35 AM. https://slate.com/newsand-politics/2008/08/alexander-solzhenitsyn-1918-2008.html 8 9 Mark Judge10 wrote that, the Harvard address not only flabbergasted those present but predicted the modern world. Solzhenitsyn foresaw the collapse of faith in the West, our addiction totechnology, popular culture’s hegemony over deeper forms of learning, political correctness, collegiate censorship, fake news…” The speech intimated that the spirit of liberty is disappearing, that the “human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer,” he said, than the consumerism of the West. Solzhenitsyn argued that the suffering endured by countries taken over by communism had made their citizens tough spiritually and politically. He continued by arguing that although an end to totalitarian oppression is desirable, its removal would not bring a spiritual improvement, if these societies were to adopt the current lifestyle of the West. During the decades spent under communism, the peoples of Russia and Eastern and Central Europe “have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardized Western wellbeing.” After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music. In his speech, Solzhenitsyn differentiated between the misused freedom that generated moral violence against young people (e.g., motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror), and genuine liberty of a civilized society, where people can function in the absence of advanced technologies: “The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then,” covering an “unstable and unhealthy” social system.” Finally, while addressing an audience of fifteen thousand individuals enduring the rain in the Harvard Yard, Solzhenitsyn declared that in the present West, unfashionable views are condemned to obscurity, producing “strong mass prejudices, a self‐deluding interpretation of the contemporary world, petrified armor around people's minds.” Thus, the famous (or maybe infamous) Harvard Address may not define the concept of liberty, but rather attempts to specify the parameters that lead to its destruction. Mark Judge. Solzhenitsyn’s Prescient Account of “AWorld Split Apart”. June 8, 2018. https://lawliberty.org/solzhenitsyns-prescient-account-of-a-world-split-apart/#:~:text=Spiritual 10 Freedom or Liberty In the December 23, 1995, issue, The Economist magazine published the following comment: "...so psycho-history explains how people act in groups, even if, individually, they are inscrutable. Human nature never alters, though people's behavior may improve a bit if they are prodded with the right incentives… Most of what is wrong with the world is not susceptible to government policy. Voters want politicians to pretend otherwise." Individuals who escaped the Soviet Bloc countries hoped to find freedom on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Many refugees believed that freedom is granted from above by people labeling themselves as politicians. The year is 2024. Many citizens of former Communist countries sense that democracy, liberty, and self-determination are abstract concepts that have not survived in the countries claiming to possess them. More than a century ago, Charles Dickens wrote a book entitled “Dombey and Son”: “The earth was made…to trade in, the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships.” Dombey, the main character, believed that making money was everything in life. It has become the pseudo-liberty adopted by many Westerners who have become devoid of emotions and originality, subservient to the dollar. One would tend to believe that humanity has the capacity for malleability, for changes with the geographical position and social environment, for political changes, for remaining of the same species and surviving in new environments by camouflaging the true selves, by melting into the background. Nevertheless, liberty should be the main ingredient in the human heart.