Social problems -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States -- Social conditions
Surely such a union of indomitable resolution in the achievement of a
given purpose, with patience and moderation in the policy pursued, and
with kindly charity and consideration and friendliness to those of
opposite belief, marks the very spirit in which we of to-day should
approach the pressing problems of the present.
These problems have to do with securing a more just and generally
widespread welfare, so that there may be a more substantial measure of
equality in moral and physical well-being among the people whom the men
of Lincoln’s day kept undivided as citizens of a single country, and
freed from the curse of negro slavery. They did their part; now let us
do ours.
Fundamentally, our chief problem may be summed up as the effort to make
men, as nearly as they can be made, both free and equal; the freedom and
equality necessarily resting on a basis of justice and brotherhood. It
is not possible, with the imperfections of mankind, ever wholly to
achieve such an ideal, if only for the reason that the shortcomings of
men are such that complete and unrestricted individual liberty would
mean the negation of even approximate equality, while a rigid and
absolute equality would imply the destruction of every shred of liberty.
Our business is to secure a practical working combination between the
two. This combination should aim, on the one hand, to secure to each man
the largest measure of individual liberty that is compatible with his
fellows’ getting from life a just share of the good things to which they
are legitimately entitled; while, on the other hand, it should aim to
bring about among well-behaved, hard-working people a measure of
equality which shall be substantial, and which shall yet permit to the
individual the personal liberty of achievement and reward without which
life would not be worth living, without which all progress would stop,
and civilization first stagnate and then go backwards. Such a
combination cannot be completely realized. It can be realized at all
only by the application of the spirit of fraternity, the spirit of
brotherhood. This spirit demands that each man shall learn and apply the
principle that his liberty must be used not only for his own benefit but
for the interest of the community as a whole, while the community in its
turn, acting as a whole, shall understand that while it must insist on
its own rights as against the individual, it must also scrupulously
safeguard these same rights of the individual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account