from Lena Mason's memoirs dated 1950...
Personal Liberty. (Legal Oration, 1896
- class day)
Through the lapse of all the Ages,
there has burned in the human breast a spark of divine fire, which, as
it has grown from a glowing ember far back in the Dark Ages, to a
flaming torch in the present century, has spread through the world the
light of happiness and joy.
Its light showed the way across the
dark Atlantic more than 400 years ago: and on the Western shore today
it shines, a beacon for all the world.
This never dying spark is the longing
for Freedom; this bright eternal light is the love of Liberty.
Personal Liberty is a theme so grand
that the greatest orators have failed to do it justice; and yet it is
so dear to every heart, that the meanest outcast values it more than
Life.
The prosperity of a nation depends in
great measure, upon the happiness of its subjects; and the happiness
of the people of any government depends upon the care with which their
Liberties are guarded and protected.
Other things being equal, that
government is best whose people have the greatest personal freedom.
There was a time when legal authorities
gave the term “personal liberty” a very narrow meaning. Even
Blackstone, in the eighteenth century, defined personal Liberty as
“the right to move about freely from place to place, without fear
of imprisonment or banishment.”
There was a time when the English
Statutes defined more than one hundred and fifty capital offences. And
then, as now, England boasted of the freedom of her people!
There was a time in England, when
anyone who was able to read or write (unless he were a priest) was
suspected of treason against the state, and upon almost any pretext,
he might be condemned to die the death of a traitor.
There was a time when three men could
not stand together on a street corner and converse in low tones about
their business interests, without fear of being arrested on a charge
of conspiracy, and thrown into prison for months, maybe years, to
await trial.
There was a time in England, when if a
starving mother stole a loaf of bread to feed her starving children,
she was hanged, and her children were consigned to the tender mercies
of the town beadle, to grow into starved manhood or womanhood; if they
were not starved or tortured to death in infancy.
There was a time in England, when if a
man was obnoxious to the Church, or a woman refused to obey it’s
mandates - the penalty was to be “walled up” alive in the foundation
of the building where priest and people met to worship God; the
echoing cries of the miserable victim mingling with the praises of the
priest who had sealed his cell in the name of Him who created them
both free and equal!
There was a time when if a man
arraigned on any criminal charge, refused to plead - if he, through
fear, or any other cause, refused to say (in answer to the question of
the court) “Guilty” or “Not guilty” - he was thrown into a dungeon; a
weight was placed on his chest; he was given scraps of food from the
nearest gutter, and water from the nearest standing pool; the weight
was increased, and the amount of filthy food and foul water
diminished, from day to day, until the poor wretch, if he still
refused to plead, died in horrible agony.
During all the years that these vile
laws and practices were in force, England stood proudly before the
world, and boasted of the freedom and personal liberty of her
subjects.
Why? Because she could look at her near
neighbors and honestly say, like the Pharisee of old, “Oh, Lord, I
thank thee that I’ am not as these men are!” If England had her
dungeons, France had her Bastile; if England had her whipping post,
Germany had her iron stake and blazing fagots. <addition for
clarification: fagots is defined as a bundle of burning sticks>
Punishment for punishment, torture for
torture, the continent was worse than England.
We, as a nation get the fundamental
principles of our government from England, and we shudder when we
think what the laws of our mother country were.
But there was a time, not hundreds of
years ago; not in England, but too lately in our own land, when
because a man could not believe, honestly, what the law said he
must believe, he was banished from home and friends, and in the
dead of winter, compelled to take up his abode with the savages of an
unknown forest. [Roger Williams]
There was a time in our country when it
was a crime to be a Quaker; when it was a crime to wear lace at more
than a certain price; when it was a crime to walk – or ride for
pleasure on the Sabbath day.
There was a time when a person accused
of witchcraft was burned or drowned, or tortured until he confessed
and then was executed. And less than three years ago, here in Ohio, a
man was expelled from his church, because at the Church trial, it was
decided that he had bewitched his neighbors cows!
Less than 50 years ago, the laws of
this country permitted a man to buy and sell his fellow men; to
traffic in human flesh and blood; to apply the lash of the master’s
whip to the cringing back of a slave.
The Constitution of the United States
of America, makes ample provision for the security of personal liberty
to everyone under its protection. It provides that “Congress shall
make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition Congress for a redress of grievances; that the right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.
“That no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to
any office or any public trust under the United States”, and that no
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law.”
The constitution of nearly every state
contains similar provisions. And as time progresses, we approach
nearer and nearer to the standard set by our great ancestors.
It has been said that the laws of a
nation advance more slowly than the nation itself advances.
Whether this is true or not, it is
certain that the laws can be no better than the people who make them.
In a government like ours, where the laws are made by the
representatives of the people, in order to have good laws, we
must have a nation of honest, industrious, intelligent people.
In order to have a free government,
we must have a free people, liberal, broad minded, well educated. A
slave with the spirit of a slave, cannot make laws fit for the
government of a free people.
In order to have a progressive
government, each generation must be better and grander than the last.
The children of each generation must be taught the foundation
principles of law and government. Each citizen must understand these
principles, for each citizen is a law maker, for the laws are made by
his agents, men he has helped elect.
If the laws are bad, do not blame your
congressman. You chose him to make laws for you. He is your agent, and
his act is yours.
Do not blame the President. His duty is
not to make the laws, but to see to it that the laws your agent
makes are enforced.
Do not blame the Courts. They can only
interpret the laws made by your agents.
If the laws of the United States are
bad, it is the fault of the American people. The people have the right
and they have the power, if they will but use it, to put none but good
men in office, and to see that none but good laws are passed.
If we are to maintain our position
before the World as a free nation, if the flag of the United
States is to be through all time the emblem of Liberty, personal
liberty in America must be kept inviolate.
When
a man is candidate for office, if no one asks “Is he a Catholic” or
“Is he a Republican,” but “Is he a man?” When a man can cast
his ballot for whom he chooses, without question or co-ercion;
when a man can follow that calling for which he is best fitted,
without prejudice to his social standing; when a man can worship God
or not worship, as his conscience dictates, without fear of social
ostracism; when a man is free to express his personal opinions so long
as, in doing so, he injures no one. When a man can dress as pleases
him best and not lose caste thereby; when woman and man are placed on
an equality, socially, civilly, and politically, so that children may
inherit the best possible faculties from both parents; when the very
air is filled with a spirit of liberty - then, and not till then, will
our nation be truly free.
That millennial time is fast
approaching. Our nation has progressed, not slowly, step by step but
by great strides, until the proudest sentiment an American can utter
is, “I’ am an American citizen.”
Our laws are better than they were,
liberty is dearer than ever before; the Dark Ages are passed in Europe
and in America.
In the eighteenth century, France
abolished torture; in the nineteenth, England out grew it; and when
the star of the twentieth century rises, may its brightest beams shine
on our own dear flag, and may that flag ever float above a people
truly free.
(Note: - This was written in 1896 –
fifty-four years ago. During that time, three wars have disrupted the
slow but stedy (SIC) improvement of our Republic.
We had but barely recovered from the
effects of the war between the States - the Civil War - when the
Spanish-American War came on, until then, the United States had never
engaged in a war of conquest. Then we became entangled in World War I,
and World War II. A war gives a great opportunity for unscrupulous
politicians; an opening for the proponents of unpatriotic theories to
work among people who are under great nervous strain and mental
stress.
Greed and love of power bring about
conditions which threaten to submerge our splendid morale; to hide or
even to wipe out our natural love of country.
But American Patriotism still lives;
American conditions, bad as they sometimes are, are still the best the
earth affords, and our love of Liberty still survives.
