Liberty is defined as:
- Freedom or release from slavery, imprisonment, captivity or any other forms of arbitrary control.
- The sum of rights and exemptions possessed in common by the people of a community, state, etc…
- A particular right, franchise, or exemption from compulsion.
The meaning of the word liberty is difficult to circumscribe. Abraham Lincoln was of the opinion that “the world has never had a good definition of [the term]. We all declare for liberty,” he said; “but in using the same word we do not mean the same thing. With some, the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others [liberty] may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men’s labor.”
Again he said, “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act.” (Address, 18 Apr. 1864; quoted in John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 15th ed., Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1980, p. 523.) The issues have changed since the time of Lincoln, but the multipurpose use of the word liberty and its synonym freedom has not changed. The sweets of liberty about which we usually speak may be classified as (1) political independence, (2) economic freedom, and (3) agency to choose. Ultimate liberty comprehends all three of these freedoms, and more.
While political independence, economic freedom, and agency may contribute to liberty of the soul, they do not guarantee it. First, as to political independence and power: In this field, perhaps the exploits of Alexander the Great are among the most widely known. With high physical courage, impulsive energy, and fervid imagination, he, at the unripe age of thirty-two years, became to all intents and purposes master of the then-known world. But he was far from enjoying liberty, for of himself he was not master. In his thirty-third year he died, a victim of his own excesses, a total stranger to freedom of the soul.
Chronological History of Liberty, and the War on Liberty
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
(Image) One Morning at the Gates of the Louvre, The day after St. Bartholomew’s Eve On this day commenced this diabolical act of sanguinary brutality. It was intended to destroy at one stroke the root of the Protestant tree, which had only before partially suffered in its branches. The king of France had artfully proposed a marriage, between his sister and the prince of Navarre, the captain and prince of the Protestants. This imprudent marriage was publicly celebrated at Paris, August 18, by the cardinal of Bourbon, upon a high stage erected for the purpose. They dined in great ...
The French Christian Huguenots in Florida set a day of Thanksgiving and offered the first Protestant prayer in North America
Commemorating the French Huguenots and their attempt at seeking religious freedom in America, Rep. Charles E. Bennett sponsored a bill on Sept. 21, 1950, to establish the Fort Caroline National Memorial. In 1989, he recited the history: “The 425th anniversary of the beginning settlements by Europeans … renamed from Fort Caroline to San Mateo, to San Nicolas, to Cowford and finally to Jacksonville in 1822. … Three small ships carrying 300 Frenchmen led by Rene de Laudonniere anchored in the river known today as the St. Johns. …” Rep. Bennett continued: "On June 30, 1564, construction of a triangular-shaped ...
The Oxford Martyrs: Bishops Ridley and Latimer Burned
In Oxford's St Giles there is a huge Victorian memorial to the Oxford Martyrs, close to the spot where they were burned at the stake. Today marks 460 years since the deaths of two of them, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, in 1555. The third, Thomas Cranmer, was burnt five months later on March 21, 1556. But who were these men, and why did they die? They were convicted during the reign of Mary Tudor, known as 'Bloody Mary' for her relentless persecution of Protestants. History has not been kind to her, though she was actually responsible for fewer ...
John Rogers is Burned to Death at the Stake in Smithfield, England. The First of Queen “Bloody” Mary’s Reign
John Rogers burned to death at a stake at Smithfield, England on this Monday morning, February 4,1555. Among the onlookers who encouraged him were his own children. What monstrous crime had earned him this cruel death? Born about 1500, Rogers was educated at Cambridge. He became a Catholic priest and accepted a position in the church at the time that the Protestant Reformation was in full swing. His conscience told him that certain teachings of his established Church were wrong and he resigned, moving to Antwerp, Holland, where he ministered to English merchants. In Holland, he became friends with ...
Religious Reformer William Tyndale Burned at the Stake for Trying to Make the Bible Available to Common People
William Tyndale, 12 years after he left England, was led from prison to the stake where he was strangled, then his body burned. He had time to utter one last cry: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Tyndale had suffered for the cause “poverty, … exile out of my natural country and bitter absence from my friends, … my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, … and hard and sharp rightings which I endure.” He insisted that death would be more pleasant than life if it were really true that men could ...
Protestant Reformation Begins: Martin Luther Nailed his 95 Theses to the Door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, Protesting the Sale of Indulgences and Other Practices
Sometime during October 31, 1517, the day before the Feast of All Saints, the 33-year-old Martin Luther posted theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The door functioned as a bulletin board for various announcements related to academic and church affairs. The theses were written in Latin and printed on a folio sheet by the printer John Gruenenberg, one of the many entrepreneurs in the new print medium first used in Germany about 1450. Luther was calling for a "disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences out of love and zeal for truth and the ...
Erasmus Published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament
Erasmus, with the help of printer John Froben, published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin part was not the corrupt Vulgate, but his own fresh rendering of the text from the more accurate and reliable Greek, which he had managed to collate from a half-dozen partial old Greek New Testament manuscripts he had acquired. This milestone was the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the scripture to be produced in a millennium… and the first ever to come off a printing press. The 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus further focused attention on just how corrupt and inaccurate the Latin ...
The ‘Cosmographiae Introductio’ is Printed and Suggests the Name “America” for the New World after Explorer Americus Vespuccius (Latin)
Cosmographiae Introductio ("Introduction to Cosmography"; Saint-Dié, 1507) is a book that was published in 1507 to accompany Martin Waldseemüller's printed globe and wall-map (Universalis Cosmographia). The book and map contain the first mention of the term 'America'. Waldseemüller's book and maps, along with his 1513 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, were very influential and widely copied at the time. It is widely held to have been written by Matthias Ringmann although some historians attribute it to Waldseemüller himself. The book includes the reason for using the name America in the wall map and the globe, and contains a Latin translation of the four journeys of Amerigo Vespucci as an appendix ...
Italian Explorer Christopher Columbus Discovered the “New World” of the Americas on an Expedition ‘Led by Hand of God’
On several occasions Columbus gave credit to the Almighty. In writing to the Spanish leaders, he said, “Our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed. Who heard of my enterprise, called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed. But who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost inspired me?” (Jacob Wassermann, Columbus, Don Quixote of the Seas, trans. Eric Sutton, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1930, p. 20.) During the voyage, after weeks of sailing with no land in sight, mutiny raised its head. Finally Columbus promised the captains of the two other ...
Italian Navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, is born in Florence, Italy
He played a significant role in the establishment of America. He was the first to establish that America was a new continent and not a part of Asia. Amerigo's legacy is not only his name, but in his dignity and devotion to the divine. Amerigo had believed for years before any actual discovery that there was a New World. 'Those new regions which we found we may rightly call a New World.' Unbeknownst to Amerigo, the New World was to be given his name. A group of scholars at the university of St. Die in Lorrain obtained copies of ...
