Give me liberty
Subtitle: speakers and speeches that have shaped America
By: Christopher L. Webber
Edition: First Pegasus books cloth edition.
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 419
ISBN-13: 9781605986333
Subjects: Oratory; Biography; Political oratory; Orators; History; Liberty; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Description: "Give me liberty," demanded Patrick Henry, "or give me death!" Henry's words continue to echo in American history and that quote, and the speech it comes from, remains one of the two or three known to almost every American. The other speeches that have become part of our American collective consciousness all have one theme in common: liberty. These feats of oration seem to trace the evolution of America's definition of liberty, and who it applies to. But what exactly is liberty? It is a term open to a broad range of opinion, and questions about freedom arise daily in the news and in everyday life. Perhaps uniquely among the nations of the world, the United States traces its origins to groups and individuals who specifically wanted create to something new. Webber's insightful Give Me Liberty looks at these great speeches and provides the historical context, focusing attention on particular individuals who summed up the issues of their own day in words that have never been forgotten. Webber gleans lessons from the past centuries that will allow us to continue to strive for the ideals of liberty in the 21st century.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-412) and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword: Defining freedom; title: Patrick Henry, 1736-1799 : "Give me liberty or give me death"; title: Daniel Webster, 1782-1852 : "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable"; title: The Abolitionists. James W.C. Pennington, c. 1807-1870 : "God of Liberty, save us from this clause" ; Wendell Phillips, 1811-1884 : "I am a fanatic" ; Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895 : "Freedom ... is the right to choose"; title: The Suffragists. Angelina Grimke, 1805-1879 : "Deliver me from the oppression of men" ; Abby Kelley Foster, 1811-1887 : "Bloody feet, sisters, have worn smooth the path by which you have come hither" ; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1815-1902 : "No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed"; title: Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865 : "A new nation, conceived in liberty"; title: William Jennings Bryan, 1860-1925 : "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold"; title: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882-1945 : "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; title: Adlai E. Stevenson, 1900-1965 : "A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular"; title: Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004 : "Man is not free unless government is limited"; title: Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968 : "I have a dream"; title: Epilogue.