Liberty: A Law of Nature And an Act of Will
By: Colby Goodrum

Liberty. One definition of liberty is that people should be entitled to pursue their own goals, and have jurisdiction over their own lives. The idea of liberty is something that is always talked about, especially in times of strife and turmoil. Liberty was the main issue during the infancy of the United States with the American Revolution, the Transcendentalist movement, and the institution of Slavery. Three main figures that commented on liberty in their writings were: Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence, Ralph Waldo Emerson in “Self-Reliance,” and Harriot Ann Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Although these three unique personalities each have something different to say about liberty, they are all related because they maintain that it is the responsibility of the individual to gain their liberty. Liberty is not something that will be handed out; individuals must be proactive in pursuit of their goal.

There is nothing more sacred or more often invoked in American society and thought than the idea of liberty. Without the idea of liberty, the country of the United States of America would never have been established. However, the underlying success of liberty does not reside in the fact that all people are entitled to certain rights. The success and endurance of liberty in America and around the world resides in the will of the people to act. A group of people with good ideas but an extreme case of lethargy does not create a big problem for an oppressor; however, a group of people armed with a good ideology and the will to act on that ideology creates a much larger problem for anyone who might try to deter their progress. Jefferson, Emerson, and Jacobs are all related, not in that they preached liberty, but rather in that they preached action.

-back-