A Responsibility to Our Forefathers – Sunday, November 03, 1985
In 1775, during the Second Revolutionary Convention in Virginia, a Virginia farmer rose to tell his countrymen, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”1
Liberty, as expressed by Patrick Henry, means the freedom to worship as we please, to speak and read without fear. It means the self-direction each one of us enjoys over our affairs—the choice of schooling, the choice of jobs, the choice of political party. It means the freedom to alter the government as citizens may desire at election time.
One U.S. president said, “Liberty does not make all men perfect, nor all society secure, but it has provided more solid progress and happiness and decency for more people than any philosophy of government in history.”2
Central to the whole fabric of our free society is the thread which runs through it all the Constitution, a document creating a system of government that has endured the most traumatic events and test. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom and liberty for the individual. Our early forefathers believed freedom and liberty were basic to an individual’s development and happiness. They were also convinced that each person has an obligation to society, a responsibility to assist with the machinery that helps guarantee freedom and liberty.
One such responsibility is to assist in the selection of government and community leaders. It is a responsibility that the framers of the Constitution would not have us take lightly a responsibility envied by countless other nations. It is through our participation in the election process that we validate the sacrifices of so many individuals throughout our country’s brief history. Said Thomas Paine, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”3
America is the only nation on earth deliberately created in behalf of an idea. That idea was liberty. The goal, above all, was to be free. Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed that purpose. The constitution was written to assure it. We should never forget that original purpose and never take our liberty for granted.
1 Patrick Henry
2 Harry S. Truman
3 Thomas Paine
November 03, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,933