MANHOOD

The basal of our civilization as we know it today has much to do with the ideas we cherish. We are ruled by these very ideas. A thought of purpose clearly conceived has a dominant force in human life. The ideas of a people are prophetic of their destiny.

As in these United States of America live many who cherish the hopes, aspirations and love of liberty, more so than any government that has ever existed.

Liberty as in having a free thought process. Most normal individuals possess what is necessary to think independently, have powers of observation, self-consciousness, memory, imagination, logical faculties, and able to observe, analyze, compare, and decide for self all the ordinary questions likely to be presented to the mind and call for judgment as the basis of action.

Of course limited by the ineradicable distinctions between truth and error which cannot be changed by any thought process. The axioms or maxims widely accepted on their intrinsic merit as dealing with mathematics, the laws of physics, and the established rules of philosophy, are not the products of a human mind, but of the divine mind; and therefore man's thoughts are somewhat limited by the laws of thought and facts of creation. Within these limits, there should be great freedom to think; otherwise it cannot be called thinking if it isn't done freely. The acceptance of propositions formulated by others does not necessarily imply thinking. Faith, in so far as it is merely an assent to an intellectual dogma , or the acceptance of the result of another's thinking, without an understanding of its processes, is not an attribute of freedom. To think is to bring one's self into immediate contact with facts and truths, and see for one's self the relation that facts and thoughts sustain to each other and that premises sustain to conclusions. Free thought is one of our most precious privileges, and any limitations laid upon its exercise are a curbing of our very liberty, an abridgment of our manhood, a species of enslavement. No man is free who is forced to blindly accept the conclusions of another man's reasoning. Every free man creates his own creed or brief authoritative formula of religious belief.

All the progress in the thought process has been immensely aided by history, and no one who seeks a firm foundation in great questioning can afford to ignore the work already done in the line of there investigations (whether of science, philosophy, or even religion) by the great minds that have preceded. No man, with any kind of safety, can just break violently, suddenly, or capriciously with the past.

Nevertheless, every individual, in as far as his capacities will allow and circumstances will admit, should, before adopting them as his own re-think the thoughts of other men, examine the relations of their conclusions to their own premises, and decide for ones own self as to the soundness of their reasoning. In other words, every man should put the stamp of his own originality on every article of his belief; but whether he can do this, or is willing to, is the great and undeniable truth-- the truth for which I most earnestly contend-- remains, that we should be free to do so.

Simply accepting the formulas elaborated by authority has about the same value as a sword has for a man without hands.

Even given the fact that attempting to think for one's self we risk a fall into error and could be led astray, on the other hand to merely believe what one does not understand and accept it as an act of obedience as to what authority may be telling you, is to risk instead possibly being led just as far astray. The basis of our highest mental attainments may be found in the trustworthiness of our own mental processes.

Liberty as in having the freedom to speak our thoughts, it is closely aligned with being a part of the whole thought process. Since it is just as necessary for a man to give utterance to his thought as it is for him to think it; thought in any wide, true sense, is practically impossible without some form of communication with other minds. It is of little avail to be untrammeled in thought, if one may not bring himself, by means of his thinking, into soul relationship with other fellow-beings (fellowship). If arriving at some great truth, it is our privilege, if not our duty, to communicate the truth to those about us. If we are in doubt as to our own process or acts, the results of our own observations and reasoning, it is our right to confer with those about us, either privately or publicly, and to seek, by their assistance, to test our conclusions, the validity of our thought, or by their aid to modify our views.

Of course there are practical limitations as there should be with speaking. Speaking which incite to riot and murder justly subject the one speaking to the real dangers of arrest and punishment as disturbers of the peace. There must be due vigilance in the maintenance of public order and welfare, but without infringing on true freedom of speech. Government, generally, is more liable to err on the side of severity than on that of laxity. The blasphemies of infidels, the tirades of sandlot orators, and the wild utterances of anarchists, are less to be dreaded than would be the brutal force of some czar suppressing free speech.

Freedom of speech for those who are necessarily limited in their powers, are feeling their way toward wise conclusions, is essential for the common progress of the race in its pursuit after truth. Without free speech intellectual progress would be confined largely to individuals; by means of it the conclusions reached by the few become the possession of the many, and the progress of the one great thinker becomes the stimulus for the advancement of the multitudes.

Unnecessary rigor in suppressing open-air meetings, violence used to punish or intimidate men from speaking the truth, are crimes against our liberty. Any institution or cause that cannot endure the light of the 21st century should retire to the darkness of the 17th century.

Freedom of debate is not some meaningless phrase to juggle with. It is a great weapon for exposing error, refuting falsehood, removing prejudices, uncovering fallacies, establishing truth, as well as awakening enthusiasm for truth.

Separated only by an arbitrary line of distinction from speaking we have liberty of the press. Being free and having a right and freedom to utter my thoughts privately to others or in a public discussion or discourse I therefore have the right to print them. The Internet littered with many web pages can be a storehouse of thought, which register the achievements of individuals and the race as a whole. No man is as wise as all; no party knows as much as all parties; no ancient ever stood on the same high level as the moderns. This age is wiser than all preceding ages; the men of today are better prepared to sit in question of interest to human thought than the men of any other generation. Those that come after us will be even wiser than we are now. To attempt to hinder the advancement of thought by limiting the liberty of the press is an attempt to fly in the face of God. He created man in his own image, implanted within him insatiable thirst for knowledge; inspiring man with an irrepressible desire not only to know and to think, but also to communicate those thoughts, and put them into some permanent shape for benefit of coming generations.

Freedom to print, an unrestricted right to have  web pages that contains discussions of all kinds of political, philosophical, scientific, social, theological-- does not imply that one is at liberty to make  and circulate immoral literature via the web for the corruption of the young, but it does remove the ban from a web page that may otherwise be regarded as false in doctrine or unsound in teaching or sharing.

Whenever the press is palsied by the touch of intolerance or fear it loses its freedom, its power, its usefulness. A muzzled press in a free country is anachronism.

Every moral creature must determine his own activity; an activity controlled from without ceases to be moral. When we perform an action under restraint it is not our own action; we are no longer free, but slaves. In its final analysis every moral action rests upon the deliverance of our conscience being, and freedom is simply the power we have to act in accordance with that deliverance. If I do that which it condemns I wrong my own nature, do violence to fundamental conception of freedom, and recognize myself as no longer a moral being, but an immoral one, doing slavishly the behest of another. No act of mine and no line of conduct can be of any avail to me, except it be the outgrowth of my own conviction of its righteousness.

The history of our liberty in this country has been nothing less than a history of struggle, of conflict, of carnage, of resistance, of victory, of defeat; triumph over difficulties; progress in spite of our enemies; success purchased at an enormous cost. "Eternal vigilance has been the price of liberty."

Our government here in the United States derives its power from the consent of us that live here, the governed; we, the people. It is simply an expression of our will; and those who, for the time being, exercise rule or authority, do it, not by virtue of their own right, nor by the law of inheritance, nor by divine appointment, but because of one simple fact that they have been chosen by the free suffrages of us, the people, as our representatives or rulers to exercise the power temporarily delegated to them for our benefit. We, the people, who elect rulers to-day can, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution which we prescribe, elect another set to-morrow to take their places.

We, as the people, ordain constitutions, make legislatures, establish courts, create judges, elect governors, constitute armies, levy taxes, regulate and execute laws. We sit on juries, and are entitled to trail by our peers. As kings and rulers; our will is law, as we after all are the sources of power. We are the government!

According to the words of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," it sweeps away at one stroke the thing with class distinctions and blots out at once all the other distinctions between men as well and recognizes that in the eye of the law, the rights of one man are just as sacred as those of another. In other words, we may differ in intellectual endowments, in  moral character, in how rich we are, color of our skin, social position, but politically speaking in this country we all are equal with something called a vote, a voice.

Each man stands or falls for himself. Regardless of whether he is wise or an idiot, strong or a weakling, filthy rich or dirt poor, white, black, red, pink, green, blue or purple we all stand for what we are--- an individual, a personality whose rights and privileges are as dear to us as are those of any other person in this whole world. For political purposes we stand alone, within our own domain we are autocrats. We have an intellect, conscience, and a will. We are ourselves epitomes of man. Whatever concerns humanity concerns us; whatever affects human rights affects our rights; whatever enhances human dignity enhances our dignity. Whatever limits, dwarfs, or hinders the race, equally and in the same manner affects us; whatever principles of justice apply to the masses of people apply to us as individuals, individually. Politically we call no man "massa;" acknowledge no authority greater than our own. We recognize no caste from which we are rightfully excluded, no class that has rights or privileges that we cannot aspire to; and we submit to no limitations of our liberty that we are not necessitated by consideration for the liberties and rights of our fellow-men.

Man, created in the image of our Maker, we are complete in ourselves. We are a free moral agent, capable of choice and competent for self-government. We are responsible directly to God for our conduct and character, and no man can stand between us and judgment to come; we must appear for ourselves before our Maker and "give an account of deeds done in this body." We must bear our own burden.

Our theory of government should give to us all politically the same status that the Bible gives us all morally and religiously. We are a political entity; an independent citizen; must act as individuals, and bear the responsibilities of those actions. Each American voter walks erect among his fellow-citizens, the peer of the noblest and the equal of the highest.

Man never reaches his highest development intellectually or religiously, or achieves his greatest successes, apart from society as a whole. The anchorite or one who lives in seclusion, usually for religious reasons, is pretty much doomed to failure. While monasticism, or  person living in a house for persons under religious vows, is nothing more than a form of perversion of life really. Simply put, men have need for attrition that comes from the active associations with others in the business of life; each sex needs the constant influences of the other. The act of living together is one of man's noblest achievements. Sociology (the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings) being a science only second in importance to theology (the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially: the study of God and of God's relation to the world). It should be insisted upon  that society always remain free to form and reform on planes of ascending development.

The great truth of the matter is that the relationship we have involving us as a citizens and the government is based primarily upon our own personal, individual relation. Being recognized by our government under which we live, capable of performing  and exercising our privileges. It therefore confers upon us the dignity of our citizenship, and comes with our right as such, to some personal loyalty in return. In other words while individualism bestows a certain amount of personal honor it also imposes obligations or has a price to be paid apart from our other subordinate relations we may sustain with family,  friends, associates, or toward society as a whole with that of being Americans.

We were  born for freedom; our highest intellectual and spiritual development, indeed, the perfection of our manhood, depends essentially upon our liberty. We should, as far as practicable, be free from all external restraints. That means our actions should be self-originated, self-controlled and unrestricted just as far as the circumstances by which we are surrounded will admit as characteristics as an individual, a personality or a moral being (that with our choosing a vocation, determining our activities, selecting companions, deciding upon a home, educating our own children, settling ones own creed, electing rulers). In as far as we are restricted whether it be weakly and voluntarily surrendering this freedom to another we emasculate ourselves.

Liberty, it is not some license though. Freedom is a conduct self-regulated in conformity with reason and the eternal verities of the universe. Only a mortal being can be free, and morality (conformity to ideals of right human conduct) implies responsibility.

When we live in communities there must be some restriction by government-- some rule of action that shall preserve the rights of the community on one hand and rights of the individual on the other. Our living together can no more dispense with government than they can with air; it is a condition of society. The necessity of some regulative power, of some restrictive agency, of some authoritative execution of punishment for wrong doing growing out of a man acting as an idiot, being selfish, and other natural limitations he may have. Anarchy, which rebels against all law as we know it and denies the necessity of any kind of government, is wholly an irrational and evil thing, ignoring as it does the essential nature of man and the plainest teachings of history it self. In its revolt against the cruelty of despotism it swings to the opposite extreme of no government at all or oppression of the tyrant or misrule of legal authorities it would rather substitute the savage fury of some mob. Because after all governments are imperfect, it would utterly abolish them-- destroy the sun to get rid of the spots on its surface. A mob in this case would be a symptom of political rottenness at its best. Anarchists or one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order, are haters of government as well as enemies of freedom period.

We have an unbound right nevertheless to combine for just purposes as long as we are using righteous means to obtain our purpose so not to do any form of violence to the great doctrine of individualism.

Government is a means, not an end. It does not and should never exist merely for its own sake; its only being its utility as an agency for the advancement of the common welfare and the promotion of individual prosperity. If all men were wise, moral, and strong, there certainly would be need of less government; but as long as ignorance, selfishness and weaknesses exist there will continue to be the necessity of some central power of regulation. In any event should this central power arrogate to itself undue importance, or seeks self-aggrandizement at the expense of the people, it then crosses the line of becoming an impertinence and an evil that should be either remedied or otherwise removed.

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