Seeking Liberty, Not License
Seeking Liberty, Not License
The Declaration Of Independence' Eternal Self-Evident Truth
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
If there is any question that engenders eternal debate, it is the question of whether we or any people, can or shall be “free”.
We saw this question emerge earlier this year when Congress began debating the merits of banning the social media platform TikTok because it was owned and controlled by Chinese companies.
Substack saw this question engaged directly last year, when the introduction of Substack Notes immediately triggered calls for “censorhip”, “moderation”, and other authoritarian-tinged restrictions upon Free Speech.
The Second Continental Congress engaged this question directly in 1776, when they unaninimously issued the Declaration of Independence, whose 248th anniversary we celebrate today.
Given that the Second Continental Congress answered the question in the affirmative in 1776, why is it still lingering seemingly unresolved today? How is it that this question cannot simply be answered and deemed resolved, so that we may move on to other questions of significance?
Part of the challenge arises from the difficulties people have in comprehending what “freedom” is, and in particular what the mode of freedom—”liberty”—that was sought in 1776 is.
The modern Merriam-Webster dictionary—arguably the best dictionary for “American” English—defines “freedom” as “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.”
“Liberty” is likewise defined as “freedom from arbitrary or despotic control”. While this largely is synonymous with “freedom”, the qualification that liberty is merely freedom from “arbitary or despotic” control implies the state of liberty still preserves some means of control, ones presumably neither arbitrary nor despotic.
Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary of American English, went to some length to clarify that “liberty” was not absolute anarchic “freedom”:
1. Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty when not confined; the will or mind is at liberty when not checked or controlled. A man enjoys liberty when no physical force operates to restrain his actions or volitions.
2. Natural liberty consists in the power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature. It is a state of exemption from the control of others, and from positive laws and the institutions of social life. This liberty is abridged by the establishment of government.
3. Civil liberty is the liberty of men in a state of society, or natural liberty so far only abridged and restrained, as is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the society, state or nation. A restraint of natural liberty not necessary or expedient for the public, is tyranny or oppression. civil liberty is an exemption from the arbitrary will of others, which exemption is secured by established laws, which restrain every man from injuring or controlling another. Hence the restraints of law are essential to civil liberty.
Significantly, the concept of “civil liberty” holds that only those constraints “necessary and expedient” for public safety and the public interest may be imposed on an individual’s freedom. Yet even necessary constraints are still constraints, and that is a subtle but crucial distinction between “liberty” and “freedom.”
That distinction very likely is why the question of whether or not we can or will be free is eternally unanswerable with any degree of finality. If we accept the legitimacy of certain “necessary” constraints, we must also entertain the reality that sometimes those constraints are violated. Sometimes “freedom” exceeds “liberty”—and that’s a problem.
Understanding why this is requires us to consider another term frequently used synonymously with freedom—”license”. In modern usage, “license” is defined as a “permission to act”. Yet there is an additional meaning that applies to “license”, “freedom that allows or is used with irresponsibility”—a modality of behavior that gives us the related term “licentiousness” (“lacking legal or moral restraints”).
Even in 1828, Noah Webster appreciated this notion of license being liberty run amok:
1. Leave; permission; authority or liberty given to do or forbear any act. A license may be verbal or written; when written, the paper containing the authority is called a license A man is not permitted to retail spirituous liquors till he has obtained a license
2. Excess of liberty; exorbitant freedom; freedom abused, or used in contempt of law or decorum.
License they mean, when they cry liberty.
The signature distinction between “liberty” and “license” is this: liberty exists in the absense of contraints, whereas license exists in the presence of constraints. “Liberty” presumes there is no authority capable of constraint, and “license” requires authority exercise that constraint.
Paradoxically, liberty and license are, as regards the role of authority, nearly polar opposites of each other.
The Founding Fathers were many things, but they were not outright anarchists. For all their love of liberty, they also loved an ordered, peaceful, and prosperous society. Moreover, they accepted that a modicum of law and government—of constraint upon personal freedom—was necessary in order to achieve and sustain that ordered, peaceful, and prosperous society.
Thus the Second Continental Congress sought freedom from Great Britain’s refusal to constrain in urgently necessary ways:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
The Second Continental Congress sought freedom also from what they viewed as Great Britain’s political licentiousness, their taking license with the government of the thirteen colonies:
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
As I have argued previously, the Declaration of Independence was the culmination of the Founding Fathers’ desire not just for personal and political freedom, but also for good government.
When we take in the whole of the Declaration of Independence, we see that both liberty and good government, in the eyes of the Founding Fathers, existed in the balance between freedom and constraint.
Good government, in their view, becomes the guarantor of liberty. Good government constrains freedom where it absolutely must, yet refrains from so doing wherever it possibly can.
As the Declaration of Independence thus stands as a blueprint for such good government, we may reliably look to the Declaration today as a gauge for whether our current government is “good” or not.
Is our government today constraining our freedom only where it absolutely must?
Is our government today refraining from so doing wherever it possibly can?
Only if we can plausibly answer both questions in the affirmative can we accept our government today as “good”.
If we cannot plausibly answer both questions in the affirmative, the Declaration of Independence also informs us of the corrective action that must be taken.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
What “new Guards” should there be in any corrected government? Simply those safeguards which preserve that crucial balance between freedom and constraint that we call liberty.
Above all, we may know from the Declaration of Independence that our Founding Fathers absolutely rejected notions of government license along with government licentiousness. The default presumption in their eyes was that government was not empowered to regulate or constrain human endeavor. Man does not need to secure a blessing from government for his actions, and cannot be called by government to account for all but a very few of his actions.
Whenever we see a call today for more government, we may know absolutely that the Declaration of Independence has already assured us that such is not good government, but its antithesis.
Whenever we see a call today for greater government regulation and license, we may know absolutely that the Declaration of Independence has already assured us that such is not good government.
If we wish to have an ordered, peaceful, and prosperous society, we absolutely must have good government. Of that there can be no doubt and certainly no dispute.
248 years ago, the Founding Fathers put forward their thesis of what good government should be—a government grounded in liberty and not license, with the clear understanding of the distinction to be made.
248 years onward, we must choose whether we will continue in their quest for good government, or if we will put it aside, allowing government license to supersede liberty.
I know my choice. What is yours?
As Thomas Sowell points out, the concept of freedom was redefined in the 20th century. Freedom is no longer measured in terms of personal autonomy. Instead, it is measured by how much “free” stuff one can receive from the government.
Wonderful! Your last posts on the election and Biden are outstanding. I have linked them in several other stacks. Bigly trouble for Dems indeed.