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Freedom vs. Liberty - Coggle Diagram
Freedom vs. Liberty
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02 Liberty needs land, 1783–1815
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Primary sources
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Tecumseh (1810): sellers "had no right to sell" → freedom shared, not owned
Secondary sources
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Debate: were forts defensive, or engines of expansion?
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04 Freedom when land runs out, 1845–1890
Meaning
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Freedom (freed people): selling their own labor, mostly without land
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Secondary sources
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Debate: did emancipation expand freedom, or turn it into a labor market?
Race / Gender / Class
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Gender: homestead claims open to heads of household, including some single women
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Links to other keywords
Capitalism: freedom as owning property, then as open markets
Security: "protection" justifies forts, then a global base network
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01 Liberty against force, 1765–1783
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Primary sources
Declaration (1776): standing armies vs. "merciless Indian Savages" → liberty for colonists, not Native people
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Secondary sources
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Debate: was liberty against all armies, or only Britain's?
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03 Freedom defined against slavery, 1816–1852
Meaning
Liberty: a political right for white men, no longer tied to owning land
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Secondary sources
Vine ch. 4: Negro Fort (1816), survivors sold into slavery
Debate: was slavery a contradiction of American freedom, or its foundation?
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05 Freedom certified, 1898–1914
Meaning
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Liberty: free trade through the Open Door, backed by troops
Primary sources
Roosevelt Corollary (1904): "international police power" → the U.S. decides when others' freedom is suspended
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Secondary sources
Vine ch. 6: Platt Amendment protects "so-called Cuban independence" → freedom with "the trappings of sovereignty"
Vine ch. 7: Honduras, "the original 'banana republic'" → empire without annexation
Debate: was 1898 a new empire, or the culmination of continental conquest?
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07 Freedom as world order, 1940–1953
Meaning
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Freedom: membership in the "free world," defined against communism
Primary sources
Luce, "The American Century" (1941): "not in a war to defend American territory" → freedom becomes a reason to act everywhere
Wallace, "Century of the Common Man" (1942): "neither military nor economic imperialism" → freedom from want instead
Secondary sources
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Vine ch. 10: Kennan, "50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population" → freedom's material base made explicit
Debate: was the Cold War driven by a Soviet threat, or by an expanding U.S. definition of its interests?
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06 Self-determination for some, 1914–1939
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Primary sources
Wilson, Fourteen Points (1918): self-determination → applied mostly to Europe
Du Bois, "African Roots of War" (1915): "democratic despotism" → freedom at home paid for by despotism abroad
Secondary sources
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Debate: was self-determination a promise, or a tool of empire?
Race / Gender / Class
Race: League mandates ranked A, B, C by supposed readiness
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Definitions (OED)
Freedom: release from slavery, or from foreign or despotic rule
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Distinction: liberty limits power; freedom is a status, the opposite of being owned
Thesis: American freedom grows by taking. It first needed land, then markets and bases, each taken from others
Mechanism, 1765–1890: Liberty Tree → Fort Harmar → Negro Fort → manifest destiny → Homestead Act
Mechanism, 1898–1953: Platt Amendment → Roosevelt Corollary → Fourteen Points → Atlantic Charter → "free world" bases
Counter-current: excluded groups claim freedom on their own terms (Abigail Adams, Tecumseh, Douglass, Aguinaldo, Du Bois, Wallace)