I agree with your premises about the state of our Union and its current disarray.
But I hardly would agree that Douglas was a “liberal” in the classic tradition. I believe that Douglas was a patriot
of the UNited STates just as Samual Adams was.Boith of their heir lights were fueled by a thirst for freedom and the means to secure it. I do not believe that makes either of them “liberals” in the classic sense.It makes them into something new, patriots of freedom established under an enlightened approach to government withe the freedom of the individual citizen and his pursuit of happiness as the major focus.. Much of this was a result of observing how native Americans governed themselves, secured themselves, such as the Mohawks and the Iroquois Confederacy, much more than following what John Locke had to say.
By example I will give you the words of another patriot who was much like Douglas, although he was from a much different background, he too highly esteemed freedom like Douglas.
His name is Samuel Adams, and here is some of what he had to say on August 1st 1776 at the Philadelphia State House:
“
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. “
Another was Francis Marion, the Swampfox.These types of men were the foundations of freedom in Amwerica, and they were neither progressives nor liberals.They were something entirely different on the face of this earth.They were American patriots.We should be proud to number ourselves among them.
Excellent post!