Republic, so that liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer the unrealized dreams of the philanthropist; no longer the mere motto of radical agitators or communistic pretenders, but a recognized and prominent element in the civil compact of the foremost nation on earth. And there may it stand forever, a beacon light rebuking despotism and tyranny, and an inspiration and guide to the struggling but bewildered pioneers of liberty and humanity. -Phineas C. Lounsbury. To those who tell us that there is a danger line in Negro education, that if they learn too much they will be too vain or too ambitious to be laborers, we reply that we have got to risk it. It is a bigger risk to have your voters ignorant. We do not propose to build the structure of our American institutions on the rim of a volcano. An ignorant suffrage is a boiling, bubbling volcano. You can't go backward. You must go forward, with all its risk. Do I say with all its risk? Nay, with all its beneficent blessing; nay, more, with all its justice. - William Hayes Ward. During many years to come the colored man will have to endure prejudice against his race and color, but this constitutes no problem. The world was never yet without prejudice. There exists prejudice in favor of and against classes among men of the same race and color. There is prejudice between religious sects and denominations; between families and individuals. The time may never come this side the millennium when men will not ask "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" But what business has government, state or national, with these prejudices? Why should grave statesmen concern themselves with them? The business of government is to hold its broad shield over all and to see that every American citizen is alike and equally protected in his civil and personal rights. My confidence is strong and high in the nation as a whole. I believe in its justice and its power. I believe that it means to keep its word with its colored citizens. I believe in its progress, in its moral as well as its material civilization. Its trend is in the right direction. Its fundamental principles are sound. Its conception of humanity and of human rights is clear and comprehensive. Its progress is fettered by no State religion tending to repress liberal thought; by no order of nobility tending to keep down the toiling masses; by no divine-right theory tending to national stagnation under the idea of stability. It stands out free and clear with nothing to obstruct its view of the lessons of reason and experience. - Frederick Douglass. What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he Whose father's fathers through long lives have reigned Though from his youth to age he roam as free But he whose birth was in a nation chained For centuries, where every breath was drained From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be The wise man watcheth with a heart that feels And says: "Cure for freedom's harms, is freedom still." CIVIL LIBERTY. Define Civil Liberty. Civil Liberty is the privilege of living according to one's inclinations, and enjoying the free use of one's own property under the sanctions of the law and the protection of the state; it includes freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the ballot, freedom of locomotion, and freedom of association. A free people enact their own laws and elect their own rulers. absence of physical and moral coercion. -Henry Sidgwick. The right of personal security consists in a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation. William Blackstone. Freedom is the power, by which man can do what does not interfere with the rights of another; its basis is nature; its standard is justice; its protection is law; its moral boundary is the maxim: Do not unto others what you do not wish they should do unto you. - French Constitution (1793). |