Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Liberty and Freedom

20 Historically Speaking · September/October 2005 tion ofagency at the heart ofAmerican political and cultural history. Rogan Kersh is associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School ofCitizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is author of Dreams of a More Perfect Union (Cornell University Press, 2001). 1 Rogan Kersh, Dreams afa More Perfect Union (Cornell University Press, 2001). Details on the methodology used are at ibid., 133-34 (Court cases); 305-09 (newspapers). 2 Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, In Search of American Political Development (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 121. 3 Rogan Kersh, "Rethinking Periodization? APD and the Macro-History ofthe United States," Polity (forthcoming 2005). 4 For details, and a list ofthe syllabi reviewed, see Rogan Kersh, "The State ofAmerican Political Development: The View from the Classroom," Perspectives on Politics 3 (forthcoming 2005). 5 Stephen Skowronek and Matthew Glassman, eds., Formative Acts: Reckoning with Agency in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming 2006). Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Liberty and Freedom Brian J. Glenn In 1843 an elderly man who fought the British at Concord sat down to talk about the conflict. The young interviewer asked Captain Preston what offense caused him to take up arms that day, only to discover the old soldier had never actually purchased the stamps he was obligated to under the Stamp Act, never drank tea (and hence was never taxed), and had not ever heard of, let alone read, Harrington, Sidney, or Locke. "Well, then, what was the matter?" his confused interviewer inquired. "Young man," Preston replied, "what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always. They didn't mean we should" (1-2). Thus begins the story line in Liberty and Freedom, David Hackett Fischer's vast catalogue ofhow Americans have understood the meaning ofthe two terms "liberty" and "freedom ." Liberty and freedom have always been central to American culture, Fischer argues, and his challenge is to present the multifaceted meanings of them as they changed over time. To do so, the author draws on the work ofTocqueville to frame the two as "habits of the heart," customs, beliefs, traditions, and folkways of people, which are examined "from the inside and the outside___ We know it from the inside by reenacting it in our minds, and we test the accuracy of that reenactment by studying it empirically from the outside" (4). For analytical purposes, Fischer defines freedom as "the rights of belonging and full membership in a community of free people (whether a tribe, a nation, or humanity itself)" (10). Liberty is used in the context of "independence , separation, and autonomy for individuals or group" (10). Freedom, therefore, is communal, while liberty is about autonomy. Freedom concerns issues of who is part of a given group, while liberty pertains to what those members are allowed to do. Stodgy Puritan New England was very much about freedom, although it placed all sorts of demands on its members in terms of the mores they were expected to uphold. Members ofthe southern gentry loved the liberty they had to ponder life's mysteries, a liberty predicated on a definition of freedom that did not extend to the slaves who made their lifestyles possible. Fischer explores how the various segments of the American polity understood the words freedom and liberty when they used them. Few citizens choose to take up a pen and explain it for historians, alas. To uncover these meanings we need instead to study the lived experiences ofAmericans and see their interpretations through the images they constructed to express them. To this end, Fischer has combed the nation to find images carved into powder horns, sewn on flags, stitched onto quilts, printed as campaign posters, written into songs, and carved into monuments. The breadth of what he finds is stunning, often amusing, and always fascinating, making the book extremely hard to put down— and extremely useful to teachers seeking a quick and eloquent discussion ofone issue or another. The author presents his material briskly and in a format that flows nicely. Much to his credit, Fischer captures not only the breadth of imagery over time, but also covers the...