Founding Father John Adams makes his case for liberty.
Excerpts from: A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law by John Adams
Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments. That many of our rights are inherent and essential. Agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries even before parliament existed. We have a right to them, derived from our maker. Our forefathers have earned and bought liberty for us at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasures and their blood. Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. No! No! It stands on this principle: That the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat and clothes to wear as the nobles or the king. That is liberty… and liberty will reign in America!
John Adams’ final case for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, before The Continental Congress – 1776
Objects of the most stupendous magnitude... measures which will affect the lives of millions, born and unborn… are now before us. We must expect a great expense of blood to obtain them. But we must always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate, as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of greater importance to mankind.
My worthy colleague from Pennsylvania has spoken with great ingenuity and eloquence. He has given you a grim prognostication of our national future. But where he foresees apocalypse, I see hope. I see a new nation, ready to take its place in the world. Not an empire, but a republic. And a republic of laws, not men. Gentlemen, we are in the very midst of revolution! The most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of the world.
How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves? And their children?
I am not without apprehensions, gentlemen. But the end we have in sight is more than worth all the means. I believe, sirs, that the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it.
While I live, let me have a country, a free country.