What is American Freedom?

Question for Discussion: How do Eric Foner and the other writers define
American freedom? Do they agree on a common definition of what freedom
means to Americans?

Reading: Foner, xiii-xxii, 3-12; Ford, “Bicentennial Speech (Web);
Abigail and John Adams, An Exchange of Letters (Web);
The Declaration of Independence (Web); White, “The American Idea”

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"We, as a people, will get there." Where is "there"?
Samuel DuBois Cook, "On Freedom"
Theodore White, The American Idea
The Declaration of Independence
President Ford, Bicentennial Speech
Foner, "The Idea of American Freedom
in the 17th and 18th century "
Foner, "The Birth of American Freedom"
during the American Revolultion
Abigail and John Adams, An Exchange of Letters
Chief Joseph, "Chief Joseph's Story"
Gunnar Myrdal, "The American Dilemma"
Ralph Ellison, "The American Dilemma, a Review"
Martin Luther King, The American Dream
Commencement Address (1961)
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
Martin Luther King, The American Dream Sermon (1965)
What does American Freedom mean in 21st century America?
Can you see that even today the definition of American Freedom
is still being contested and fought over.

The Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Theodore White, The American Idea

Jefferson himself could not have imagined the reach of his call across the world in time to come when he wrote:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

Some of the first European Americans had come to the new continent to worship God in their own way, others to seek their fortunes. But over a century-and-a-half, the new world changed those Europeans, above all the Englishmen who had come to North America. Neither King nor Court nor church could stretch over the ocean to the wild continent. To survive, the first emigrants had to learn how to govern themselves. But the freedom of the wilderness whetted their appetites for more freedoms. By the time Jefferson drafted his call, men were in the field fighting for those new-learned freedoms, killing and being killed by English soldiers, the best-trained troops in the world, supplied by the world's greatest navy. Only something worth dying for could unite American volunteers and keep them in the field--a stated cause, a flag, a nation they could call their own.

But what is most important is the story of the idea that made them into a nation, the idea that had an explosive power undreamed of in 1776.
All other nations had come into being among people whose families had lived for time out of mind on the same land where they were born. Englishmen are English, Frenchmen are French. Chinese are Chinese, while their governments come and go; their national states can be torn apart and remade without losing their nationhood. But Americans are a nation born of an idea; not the place, but the idea, created the United States Government. "

Abigail and John Adams, An Exchange of Letters

ABIGAIL ADAMS TO JOHN ADAMS

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.

"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

Martin Luther King, The American Dream Sermon

"It wouldn't take us long to discover the substance of that dream. It is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a dream. It's a great dream.

The first saying we notice in this dream is an amazing universalism. It doesn't say "some men," it says "all men." It doesn't say "all white men," it says "all men," which includes black men. It does not say "all Gentiles," it says "all men," which includes Jews. It doesn't say "all Protestants," it says "all men," which includes Catholics. ( Yes, sir ) It doesn't even say "all theists and believers," it says "all men," which includes humanists and agnostics.

Then that dream goes on to say another thing that ultimately distinguishes our nation and our form of government from any totalitarian system in the world. It says that each of us has certain basic rights that are neither derived from or conferred by the state. In order to discover where they came from, it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity. They are God-given, gifts from His hands. Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality. The American dream reminds us, and we should think about it anew on this Independence Day, that every man is an heir of the legacy of dignity and worth. "

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Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

"More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."

King, "The American Dream: Commencement Address" (1961)

All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made. I didn't make it that way, but this is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne caught it a few centuries ago and could cry out, "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. " If we are to realize the American dream we must cultivate this world perspective.
.............Martin Luther King

Chief Joseph's Story (1879)

"I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. Let me be a free man--free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, freed to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself...."

Joseph concludes his speech by promising that if White Americans "treat the Indian as they treat each other, then we shall have no more wars. We shall all be alike."
..........Young Chief Joseph

Ralph Ellison, "An American Dilemma, a Review"

"In our society it is not unusual for a Negro to experience a sensation that he does not exist in the real world at all. He seems, rather, to exist in the nightmarish fantasy of the white American mind as a phantom that the white mind seeks unceasingly, by means both crude and subtle, to lay to rest. Myrdal proves this no idle Negro fancy. He locates the Negro problem "in the heart of the [white] American ... the conflict between his moral valuations on various levels of consciousness and generality." Indeed, the main virtue of An American Dilemma lies in its demonstration of how the mechanism of prejudice operates to disguise the moral conflict in the minds of whites produced by the clash on the social level between the American Creed and anti-Negro practices. There is, however, a danger in this very virtue.

For the solution of the problem of the American Negro and democracy lies only partially in the white man's free will. Its full solution will lie in the creation of a democracy in which the Negro will be free to define himself for what he is and, within the large frame-work of that democracy, for what he desires to be. Let this not be misunderstood. For one is apt, in welcoming An American Dilemma's democratic contribution, to forget that all great democratic documents-and there is a certain greatness here-contain a strong charge of anti-democratic elements. Perhaps the wisest attitude for democrats is not to deplore the ambiguous element of democratic writings, but to seek to understand them. For it is by making use of the positive contributions of such documents and rejecting their negative elements that democracy can be kept dynamic....."

"Much of Negro culture might be negative, but there is also much of great value and richness, which, because it has been secreted by living and has made their lives more meaningful, Negroes will not willingly disregard.

What is needed in our country is not an exchange of pathologies, but a change of the basis of society. This is a job which both Negroes and whites must perform together. In Negro culture there is much of value for America as a whole. What is needed are Negroes to take it and create of it "the uncreated consciousness of their race." In doing so they will do far more; they will help create a more human American.

Certainly it would be unfair to expect Dr. Myrdal to see what Negro scholars and most American social scientists have failed to see. After all, like most of its predecessors, An American Dilemma has a special social role. And while we do not quarrel with it on these grounds necessarily, let us see it clearly for what it is. Its positive contribution is certainly greater at this time than those negative elements-hence its uncritical reception. The time element is important. For this period of democratic resurgence created by the war, An American Dilemma justifies the desire of many groups to see a more democratic approach to the Negro. The military phase of the war will not, however, last forever. It is then that this study might be used for less democratic purposes. Fortunately its facts are to an extent neutral. This is a cue for liberal intellectuals to get busy to see that An American Dilemma does not become an instrument of an American tragedy"

President Ford, Bicentennial Speech

"The American Revolution was unique and remains unique in that it was fought in the name of the law as well as liberty. At the start, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the divine source of individual rights and the purpose of human government as Americans understood it. That purpose is to secure the rights of the individuals against even government itself. But the Declaration did not tell us how to accomplish this purpose or what kind of government to set up."

"The Constitution was created to make the promise of the Declaration come true. The Declaration was not a protest against government but against the excesses of government. It prescribed the proper role of government to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and their happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this all alone, so government is not necessarily evil but a necessary good...
."

"It is good to know that in our own lifetime we have taken part in the growth of freedom and in the expansion of equality which began here so long ago. This union of corrected wrongs and expanded rights has brought the blessings of liberty to the 215 million Americans, but the struggle for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is never truly won. Each generation of Americans, indeed of all humanity, must strive to achieve these aspirations anew. Liberty is a living flame to be fed, not dead ashes to be revered, even in a Bicentennial Year.

It is fitting that we ask ourselves hard questions even on a glorious day like today. Are the institutions under which we live working the way they should? Are the foundations laid in 1776 and 1789 still strong enough and sound enough to resist the tremors of our times? Are our God-given rights secure, our hard-won liberties protected?"

"It is right that Americans are always improving. It is not only right, it is necessary. From need comes action, as it did here in Independence Hall. Those fierce political rivals -- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- in their later years carried out a warm correspondence. Both died on the Fourth of July of. 1826, having lived to see the handiwork of their finest hour endure a full 50 years.

They had seen the Declaration's clear call for human liberty and equality arouse the hopes of all mankind. Jefferson wrote to Adams that "even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore life [light] and liberty to them."

Over a century later, in 1936, Jefferson's dire prophesy seemed about to come true. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, speaking for a mighty nation, reinforced by millions and millions of immigrants who had joined the American adventure, was able to warn the new despotisms: "We too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees."

The world knows where we stand. The world is ever conscious of what Americans are doing for better or for worse, because the United States today remains the most successful realization of humanity's universal hope.

The world may or may not follow, but we lead because our whole history says we must. Liberty is for all men and women as a matter of equal and unalienable right. The establishment of justice and peace abroad will in large measure depend upon the peace and justice we create here in our own country, where we still show the way. "

Foner, "The idea of American Freedom
in the 17th and 18th centuries "

"No idea is more fundamental to Americans' sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom." (xiii)

"Freedom has always been a terrain of conflict, subject to multiple and competing interpretations, its meaning constantly created amd recreated." (xv)

Various types of Freedom:

1. Political freedom, the right to participate in public affairs.

2. Moral freedom, or the Christian ideal of freedom, the capacity to act according to an ethical standard ( a Christian value system)

3. Personal freedom, the ability to make crucial individual choices free from outside coercion.

4. Economic freedom, economic automony, the right to control private property, the right to participate in the free market.

Gunnar Myrdal, The American Dilemma

In The American Dilemma (1944), Gunnar Myrdal called the American Creed -- a belief in the essential dignity of all human beings and their inalienable right to democracy, liberty, and equal opportunity.

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Myrdal saw a vicious cycle in which whites oppressed blacks, and then pointed to blacks' poor performance as reason for the oppression. The way out of this cycle, he argued, was to either cure whites of prejudice or improve the circumstances of blacks, which would then disprove whites' preconceived notions. Myrdal called this process the “principle of cumulation."

In Black-White Relations: The American Dilemma , Junfu Zhang gives this description of Myrdal's work:
According to Myrdal, the American dilemma of his time referred to the co-existence of the American liberal ideals and the miserable situation of blacks. On the one hand, enshrined in the American creed is the belief that people are created equal and have human rights; on the other hand, blacks, as one tenth of the population, were treated as an inferior race and were denied numerous civil and political rights. Myrdal's encyclopedic study covers every aspect of black-white relations in the United States up to his time. He frankly concluded that the "Negro problem" is a "white man's problem." That is, whites as a collective were responsible for the disadvantageous situation in which blacks were trapped.

Samuel DuBois Cook, "On Freedom"

"Historically and morally speaking, freedom is the fruit of struggles, tragic failures, tears, sacrifices, and sorrow"

Foner, The Birth of American Freedom
during the American Revolution

The Puritans came to America with a "Spiritual Definition of Freedom":

"Christian liberty" meant submission not only to the will of God but to secular authority as well, to a well-understood set of interconnected responsibilities and duties, a submission not less complete for being voluntary. And thus religious liberty meant obedience to God.

"Civil liberty" meant obedience to law, so long as the laws were created by elected representatives and did not operate in an arbitrary fashion. Note, this is a Lockean definition of liberty.

"British freedom" celebrated the rule of law, the right to live under legislation to which one's community had consented, restraints on the arbitrary exercise of political authority, and rights like trial by jury enshrined in the common law.

Republicanism and liberalism: This tension between freedom as the power to participate in public affairs and freedom as a collection of individual rights requiring protection against governmental interference.

"Republican liberty" was a civic and social quality, which could only be exercised by citizens of a "free state. Liberty was the right
to pariticipate in public affairs."

Liberalism, or "Lockean liberty," meant protecting the private life and personal concerns from interference by the state.

By the American Revolution freedom depended on owning property, participating in civil politics, freedom from government interference in an individual's life, and basic rights which government could not take away. This idea of freedom is spelled out by Jefferson in the "Declaration of Independence."