The Importance Of Liberty In The United States

America the land of the free wasn’t always free for everyone, it was a place of slavery, racism, sexism and more. Since our beginning we have solved many of these problems, however, they haven’t disappeared completely. While civil liberties issues have been mostly resolved for race and gender, in the U.S there still exists issues with basic liberties in other aspects of life. This is proven through the use of logos and pathos within Susan B Anthony’s speech, “What to the American Slave is Your 4th of July” by Frederick Douglas, and the photograph Susan B Anthony’s grave.

Despite its precepts of liberty and justice for all, America has a long history of preventing certain segments of the population from enjoying all of the liberties they are entitled to. While America has made several key advances since the days of the Founding Fathers, there is still progress to be made. Civil liberty issues of the past have not been fully resolved, as shown by racial separatism, unequal democratic participation, and interference with freedom of speech. As shown by racial separatism, civil liberty issues have not been resolved.

America’s history is overrun with oppression and injustice based on race, ethnicity, and other traits that innocent victims have no control over. As a result, the reputation of the United States is forever tainted by it’s dark past, and still practices these surviving habits of hatred. Civil liberty issues faced since the establishment of the country have yet to be resolved because of the ever-present mistreatment, corruption in positions of authority, and the dehumanization of minorities.

Upon creating the U.S. Constitution, the framers of America believed that “in order to form a more perfect union,” we required a government that would “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” They sought to form a political entity that would take the necessary steps to ensure that the people of the nation would have the freedom to act and speak according to their own free will and guarantee their future generations the entitlement to that same liberty. The bill of rights, laid out as the first 10 amendments in the Constitution, guarantees citizens a number of personal freedoms that the government cannot infringe upon. Through the process of incorporation, the amendments not only apply to the federal government, but also to the states and local government. Therefore, allowing for the reservation of powers to the states and the people that were not notably allowed to the federal government.

We all strive for something. Excellence, confidence, and adventure are just a few of the things people strive for. What about freedom? I’d hope we could all agree that freedom is something we all strive for. Imagine not being able to say what your thinking, or marry who you want to marry, or even make decisions for yourself. Think about how that would affect your life. Freedom is intended in the Preamble of the constitution using the words “justice,” “liberty,”and “posterity, ” as a means to describe what this freedom would look like. The Preamble to the Constitution is most compelling for Americans today because it promises the people rights and freedoms that unite the people and cannot be taken from them.

Women back then didn’t have as much rights as men had , for example in the story “The Scarlet Letter” it talks about a girl named Hester Prynne that was sentenced for adultery and was in prisoned . Another example is the story “The Declaration Of Independence” it talks about “All men are created equal.” and “All men have basic human rights given to them by God.” but never mentioned women about their rights because women didn’t received any rights till later on .

James Madison begins his famous federalist paper by explaining that the purpose of this essay is to help the readers understand how the structure of the proposed government makes liberty possible. Each branch should be, for the most part, in Madison's opinion, independent. To assure such independence, no one branch should have too much power in selecting members of the other two branches. If this principle were strictly followed, it would mean that the citizens should select the president, the legislators, and the judges. But, the framers recognized certain practical difficulties in making every office elective. In particular, the judicial branch would suffer because the average person is not aware of the qualifications judges should

The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. A word created by man to escape the bonds of tyranny to express the idea of what it means to persist one's own ambitions. Freedom. Freedom is not the absence of confinement but the will to achieve freedom when imprisoned. After carefully concluding the reading done over this semester one is able to clearly understand the confinement these early Americans felt and their decision to achieve a form of freedom. Freedom has always existed but it is the history of this nation that will define what actions freedom takes.

Even if the other point of view is completely wrong it is important to listen carefully and present your position vigorously and honestly. Otherwise your point of view will lose its vitality and freshness and become dead dogma, mere rhetoric.

Foner describes 1848 as “the spring time of nations, a time of democratic uprisings against the monarchies of Europe and demands of ethnic minorities for national independence. American principles of liberty and self-government appeared to be triumphing in the Old World” (Foner 380). Many reforms began to take place after the successfully removing slavery from the North, one of which was in the education system. Representatives began asking for subscriptions to the railroad from the citizens in Connecticut. Although the railroad would advance trading, shipping, and traveling tremendously, that did not come with many safety and operating complications. As the North was abolishing slavery, they were also running into representative issues;

The document I chose to share about is Enslaved Blacks Adopt the Cause of Liberty. This document was about the process slaves had to go through to gain the freedom they obviously deserved. Their journey for freedom started in 1777 but it wasn't until 1783 that Massachusetts declared slaves free. I chose this article because like many of my other classmates slavery has always been an interesting topic for me. I think I find it interesting because all through high school history they would talk about slavery and when slaves became free but they never went indepth into the struggles they faced to get their freedom.

Individual’s rights according to U.S Constitution includes; the right of protection from unreasonable search and seizure, the 4th Amendment. The police’s stops and frisk procedures, falls under unreasonable search, seizure and racial targeting. The policy allows officers to stop, question or frisk. In Terry vs. Ohio, the court decided it was constitutional to balance between individual’s liberty and law and order [1].

Out the side window of Chapultepec Lupita Mexican Restaurant in Houston, Texas is a white Public Notary office with a colorful, geometric mural of a fierce bird rising against foreboding, building-like structures. In a corner atop the mural, Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote, “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny” stands for all to see. Beneath Jefferson’s wise words, the artist has declared Edward Snowden and Julian Assange heroes. While plenty government officials condemn the actions of these demonized “hacktivists,” reconsider the summer of 2013, when Americans sat aghast in their living rooms as reporters broke stories of the mass surveillance of American citizens through the collection of phone records and user data from major American companies (i.e. Apple, Verizon, Facebook, and Google) by the National Security Agency (NSA) (Scherer and Shuster). In early June 2013, several days following the first reports, Edward Snowden, a thirty year-old libertarian, and former NSA contractor, personally claimed responsibility for leaking the documents that proved the privacy infringements (Scherer and Shuster). For the duration of the summer the world watched on as Snowden and allies avoided the American manhunt like characters from a Mission Impossible movie, concluding when Russia granted Snowden asylum for a year (Scherer and Shuster). Snowden has been labeled everything from a “dangerous traitor” to a “Dark

Within the study of legal philosophy, few scholars have been able to understand the dangers arising from the complex relationship between ‘liberty’ and the ‘state’ to the same extent as Lord Acton. Though mainly unpublished prior to his death, Acton’s writings provoke thought surrounding power struggles and conflicting interests in societies. It has become clearer over time that inequality, whether institutionalised or not, ultimately provides the foundation of modern societies. In order to counteract this and facilitate stability amongst nations, particularly in the prevention of anarchy, many support the view that there is an inherent need to restrict the complete exercise of free will, be it powers possessed by a public authority, or at an individual level. The principle of self-determination in the context of the ‘state sovereignty’, that being the right of a nation to conduct itself in the absence of external influence, has assisted in alleviating some of the burdens placed upon the human race. The state routinely exercises sovereignty over its inhabitants and distinct territory to establish control, and in an ideal world should render a society free from oppression from both by the state, and amongst individuals. Though the struggle to obtain ‘liberty’ had underpinned the existence of modern nations, disagreement as to its nature and scope has created a variety of distinct perspectives regarding the limits which ought to be placed on our personal freedoms.

Equality and freedom are renowned merits of living in the United States, yet these same great qualities that we enjoy as citizens of this great country have created a divide in our country — the divide between civil rights and civil liberties. It is important first to distinguish the difference between civil liberties, which are freedoms guaranteed to all citizens in the Bill of Rights, and civil rights, which protect citizens from discrimination. Unfortunately, what has slowly transpired over the years, is that some groups experience discrimination by others who seek to maintain individual freedoms. Conversely, efforts intending to protect some individuals from discrimination have placed limitations on the freedoms of others. Similar to factions, liberty is a double edged sword; on one hand, citizens want their freedoms — civil liberties. On the other hand, they also want to be treated equally, and protected from discrimination — civil rights. Although it is often difficult to decipher between liberties and rights, society owes consideration of both qualities to one another. Upholding one individual’s freedoms should not come at the expense of another person’s civil rights. However, recent events expose a growing trend where this is indeed the case.