The Language of Freedom in the American Presidency, 1933-2006

Freedom is the most familiar symbol in American political culture, but little is known about how presidents have employed this symbol in their discourse. This study uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine the language of freedom in more than seventy years worth of presidential speeches. The findings reveal a presidential narrative of freedom that has been remarkably constant over time. However, within this broad narrative, presidents' political ideology and the context in which they spoke led to significant differences in the way they defined freedom and in the way they used the term to define the nation. ********** There is perhaps no value that Americans cling to more tightly than freedom. Freedom has been the rallying cry of revolutions and the foundation of great social movements, from the founding of the nation to the Civil Rights movement and beyond. Symbolic images of freedom such as the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty dominate the idealized stories of America's past, even as new images are crafted to carry on the tradition; the largest building being constructed on the site where the World Trade Center once stood, for instance, is called the Freedom Tower. Following the 2004 election, citizens in key battleground states were asked for a one-word answer to the question "What does America mean to you?" For roughly half of those asked, the answer was freedom (Cillizza 2006). Clearly, the idea of freedom has been, and continues to be, a tremendously important part of the American imagination. As Foner (1994, 436) puts it, "What ... could be more American than a devotion to freedom?" (see also Foner 2006; Lakoff 2006). (1) Given the cultural resonance of the concept of freedom, it is unsurprising that the language of freedom (and liberty, freedom's rhetorical counterpart) is a staple of political discourse. Schochet (2003, 91) has noted that "liberty is one of the most important and ... persistent notions in the political vocabulary of the West." In particular, American presidents have made use of the language of freedom (Coe and Domke 2006; Domke 2004; Ivie 1987). Take, for instance, President George W. Bush's second inaugural address. In a speech that was only 2,083 words long, the president managed to use some form of the words freedom and liberty 49 times--more than 2 references for every 100 words he spoke. Bush talked of "the unfinished work of American freedom," the "promise of liberty," "freedom's cause," "liberty for all," "the history of freedom," and God as "the Author of liberty." Ultimately, the president made more references to freedom and liberty than he did to "America" and the "nation" combined. Apart from its general prominence as a theme in presidential discourse, however, little is known about the particular ways in which presidents have employed freedom as a rhetorical device. Indeed, despite a considerable body of scholarship on the concept of freedom (e.g., Graebner 1977; Kammen 1986; Miller 1991; Patterson 1991) and a vast body of scholarship on presidential discourse (e.g., Campbell and Jamieson 1990; Hart 1987; Lim 2002; Teten 2003; Tulis 1987), very few studies have examined presidents' use of the language of freedom. Those few that have done so have focused narrowly on freedom's role as a metaphor (e.g., Ivie 1987; McGee 1980b). This is a significant void in the scholarship given the cultural importance of freedom in America and the regularity with which presidents have spoken of freedom and liberty. With this in mind, I employ qualitative and quantitative methods to examine presidents' use of the language of freedom across eight decades of presidential discourse, from 1933 to 2006. The article proceeds in four parts. I begin by offering a theoretical rationale for examining presidents' use of freedom. Following this, I undertake a qualitative textual analysis of presidential discourse, which reveals the broad narrative within which presidents have employed the language of freedom. …