The American nation was founded upon the notion of "liberty and justice for all." The meanings of liberty and justice, and the means of assuring them through government form the central elements of this volume.
Does "human nature" force humans to create governments in order not to kill each other? Once a government has been established, what factors lead to tyranny? What is the role of freedom of opinion and discussion as an essential element of liberty, and what are the safeguards against tyranny?
"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains," wrote Rousseau. In a different context Jean Paul Sartre has said, "Man is condemned to be free," and existentialists speak of the "flight from freedom." Liberty has been the object of struggle throughout history. But do people really want freedom with all the responsibility that goes with it?
Two of the greatest drives of human beings are to be free and to be secure. Is it possible to have total freedom and total security? Or does one of these limit the other? And if so, which takes priority?
Even more perplexing is the tension between equality and freedom. The slogan of the French Revolution, still the slogan of the French Republic, was "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." But again, which takes priority in a democracy, and are these too, in a certain way, or to a certain degree, mutually exclusive?
How are freedom and justice related? How does one account for the subjugation and even massacre of a whole people, as in the Holocaust during World War II? Does totalitarian domination, as Hannah Arendt writes, "bear the germs of its own destruction?" What connection do these have with the civil rights movements in the United States and other parts of the world?
A recurring theme to be found in Tocqueville, Calhoun, Mill, and others is concern about the "Tyranny of the Majority." Here the question is to what extent majority opinions should prevail as against minority rights. But can there also be a tyranny of minorities?
These and many other questions are examined in the selections which follow. The arguments are old and for the most part familiar ones, but they still speak in important ways to the American people, providing the basic elements of civic discourse to a nation which is still working to make democracy work.
Anne Marshall Huston
Professor of Education