Freedom Freely Imagined: Every Generation Wins its Own Form of Liberty

September/October 2005 Historically Speaking 23 Freedom Freely Imagined: Every Generation Wins its Own Form of Liberty* James A. Morone George W. Bush used the word "freedom " twenty-four times during his second inaugural address. After the president's handlers rushed out and denied that he was looking to start more wars, George Bush Senior clarified the point of his son's speech. "It's about freedom," he explained. David Hackett Fischer has a stern message for snickering Democrats: "For three centuries, American movements that lost interest in liberty and freedom succeeded only in removing themselves from the main currents of American life." Today the stakes are especially high. American freedom , argues Fischer, rests on a rich diversity of ideas; it is threatened whenever passionate, single-minded, born- again apostles of a narrow view press their own vision of freedom while repressing others. That recurring danger, concludes Fischer, is "happening again as this book goes to press." Liberty andFreedom is a long and dazzling call to arms. The book begins by asking what Americans mean by the two terms in the first place. Does George W. Bush have the same thing in mind as, say, Francis Scott Key, Martin Luther King Jr., or Bob Dylan? Liberty and freedom form a two-word American anthem passed down across the generations; the words reflect folk tradition * Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: James A. Morone, "Freedom Freely Imagined," The American Prospect Online, March 20, 2005. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org. with deep roots and commonsense meanings. How can we get at those meanings? Fischer's answer is to rummage about the national attic and reflect on the stuff he finds: paintings, posters, powder horns, ceramics, coins, bells, bumper stickers, buttons, ags, spittoons, and more. Fischer begins with a brilliant bit of etymology . "Liberty" comes from the Latin libertas and means unbounded, unrestricted; it Allegorical woodcut of a peristyle temple with an altar, 1834. The figure of Liberty rises from a flame, holding the "Bill of Rights." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-89564]. denotes separation. "Freedom" comes from the languages of northern Europe (Norse fri, Germanie/) and suggests full kinship rights in a community; it denotes connection (as in "friend"). At the core of our political culture lies a dynamic tension between liberty (separation ) and freedom (connection). The opening chapters are the most riveting . Fischer traces the origins of our multiple traditions of liberty and freedom by examining revolutionary signs, each rooted in a different early American community. In Puritan New England, tight bands of Calvinist saints aspired to a "well- ordered" liberty symbolized by liberty trees. The telling New England totem—great, organic, trees deeply rooted at the heart of the community— adorned battle flags, crests, coins, and silver bowls. In contrast, New York has featured sixteen generations ofethnic tensions, class conici , political turbulence, and economic competition —not to mention "abrasive manners and abusive speech" (of course Fischer lives near Boston). New York's revolutionary emblem was the liberty pole—a rootless, mobile, human construction that resembled a ship's mast and suggested both artisans' handiwork and class-consciousness . Quaker Philadelphia aspired to the Golden Rule. The Friends, comments Fischer, "were among the few people in the world who extended to others the rights they claimed for themselves ." The Liberty Bell— heard by everyone in town—symbolized "universal liberty and freedom." The bell, however, eventually clashed with a different American fixation. Though it developed small fractures in the 1840s, taxpayers objected to buying a new bell and rang the old one until it cracked from lip to crown. Fischer cheers its "second career as a silent symbol of liberty and freedom," but we might also remember the jagged crack as an emblem of dubious tax resistance—a beloved symbol of liberty ruined by tight-fisted public finances. Ironically, George W. Bush ended his second inaugural address recalling that the Liberty Bell once "rang as if it meant something." Thanks to a reckless 19th-century fiscal attitude , it will never...