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What Is Liberty?
Differing Definitions Drive Our Divisions
“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…”
An inexact definition of Liberty allowed the founding fathers of the United States wiggle room they needed bringing together southern slavers, mid-coast aristocrats, and stubborn northerners to begin the American Experiment. But the poorly defined word underlies many disagreements we still have today over how we govern these United States.
You may be shaking your head — “I know what Liberty is!”
Do you?
The problem isn’t that the word lacks definition. It simply has Too Many. There are strong and different definitions running loose — what it means to me, it might not mean to you.
Perhaps, as I did, you equate Liberty with Freedom?
Is that correct? Read this interesting passage in Colin Woodard’s American Nations A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America regarding how the Mid-Atlantic “Tidewater” gentry viewed the term:
Liberty was something that was granted and was thus a privilege, not a right. Some people were permitted many liberties, others had very few, and many had none at all… Liberties were valuable because most people did not have them and were thought meaningless without the presence of a…
