"Liberty in some countries is a kind of charade word, an anagram, a symbol
representing an imaginary quantity, a password invented by unhappy men to
express all that they do not possess; a term meaning in the minds of
slaves a conglomerate of conditions so absurd, of aspirations so futile,
of imaginary delights so fantastically unreasonable, that if the ideal
state of which the chained dreamers rave were realized but for one moment,
humanity would start in amazement at the first glimpse of so much
monstrosity, and by and by would hold its sides with laughter at the folly
of its deluded fellows. In most countries where liberty is talked of it is
but a dream, and such a dream as could only occur to the sickened fancy of
a generation of bondsmen. But it means something else with us. It is here,
in this country, in this capital, in this hall, it is in the air we
breathe, in the light we see, in the strong, free pulses of our blood; it
is the heritage of men whose sires died for it, whose fathers laid down
all they had for it, of men whose own veins have bled for it--and not in
vain.
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