CHAPTER IX. UNION AND LIBERTY
"There is what I call the American idea," declared Theodore
Parker in the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1850. "This idea
demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy--that
is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all
the people; of course, a government on the principle of eternal
justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake, I will
call it the idea of Freedom."
These are noble words, and they are thought to have suggested a
familiar phrase of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, thirteen years
later. Yet students of literature, no less than students of
politics, recognize the difficulty of summarizing in words a
national "idea." Precisely what was the Greek "idea"? What is
today the French "idea"? No single formula is adequate to express
such a complex of fact, theories, moods--not even the famous
"Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The existence of a truly
national life and literature presupposes a certain degree of
unity, an integration of race, language, political institutions,
and social ideals.
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