A Speech in Praise of Liberty
Liberty may be natural to the individual, but political liberty remains an uncommon achievement.

Context For the Speech
This is admittedly a more personal post than usual for this venue, but given its political relevance, I’ve decided to share it—hoping my kind readership will forgive a moment of possible self-indulgence.
In 2009, my esteemed colleague Dr. Brian Carroll led a first-class, memorable campus-wide celebration of the First Amendment and the free exchange of ideas. The multi-day event included, among other activities, panel discussions on the modern relevance and meaning of the First Amendment, a choir performing songs once banned by law, and the display of an exquisitely faithful replica of the Gutenberg Bible. Dr. Carroll described it as “a tree with many branches”—a fitting description given that the event’s valedictory act was the planting and dedication of our college’s original Liberty Tree.
In early March of this year (2025), just hours after President Trump’s State of the Union Address, our campus’ Liberty Tree was brought down by a storm.
Our college community responded quickly and wholeheartedly. Within days, Mitch D., our head groundskeeper, and his crew—in consultation with faculty—selected and planted a fitting replacement. Even more inspiring, students Scarlett and Mary, without prompting or faculty interference, organized a rededication ceremony. They invited Dr. Carroll to speak on the history of the original Liberty Tree initiative and to introduce me as the event’s speaker. Humbled by his generous words, I delivered the entire speech with a lump in my throat.
Below is what I said, though for this forum I omit much of my thank you remarks to the folks already mentioned above.
My Liberty Tree Rededication Address
Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to speak today. It’s an honor to be in your presence to reflect on something dear to us all. Though we hoped that drenching rain would not drive us inside, we are nonetheless grateful to be gathered on solid ground—in more ways than one.
This gathering honors the efforts who made this event possible—but it also marks something larger. With this dedication, we stitch our personal stories into a grand tapestry of renewal and resistance that stretches back beyond the founding of our nation. Our gathering today may be modest in size, but the thread of historical continuity our gathering represents is mighty and grand.
The Liberty Tree Tradition
The original Liberty Tree stood on Boston Common, where colonists gathered in 1765 to protest the Stamp Act. That particular leafy elm—a species once common across our landscape—became a powerful symbol of defiance and freedom in the years leading up to American independence. Other towns soon planted their own liberty trees, under whose shade people would gather to publicly recommit themselves to the great cause of liberty..
Initial Response to the Storm
When I heard that our college’s liberty tree had fallen during a storm—just hours after the State of the Union Address—I confess I found this coincidence unsettling. Like so many others, I had felt a steady unease at the near-daily litany of disconcerting news–of the erosion of liberty and the rise of arbitrary power.
The timing felt ominous, even uncanny.
A Changed Perspective: Leaning Into Hope
Since my initial response, I have felt a change in perspective. Two things, in particular, have lifted my spirits.
First, the call to replant our liberty tree came from students. When the torch of liberty is carried by those who will need it longest, our future cannot be bleak.
Second, I subsequently learned that the original Liberty Tree of Boston was deliberately destroyed in 1775 by loyalists to the King who believed, mistakenly and naively, that by cutting down a symbol of liberty they could destroy our yearning for liberty.
History has long shown that tyrants try to tame the soul through violence to the body. Such tactics, while dreadful, are always, if only eventually, a losing effort. Bodies and trees are things, and things eventually break. But ideals do not. Our predecessors knew that. It’s worth noting that the great Boston elm was cut down a year prior to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. When that tree was cut down, the colonists were just getting warmed up. Their resolve reminds us that the destruction of a symbol can reawaken the cause it represents.
The Perennial Fight for Liberty
That we are here for a re-dedication to liberty seems to me perfectly fitting.
Liberty is never won once and thereby forever secured. Each generation must fight for it anew.
But why is that?
It’s a question worth our contemplation if but briefly here.
We know that liberty is priceless.
We know that liberty is deeply, if mysteriously, connected to our dignity, and also deeply, if mysteriously, connected to our respective capacities to know truth and to exercise moral judgement, to be self-governing creatures.
We know, more prosaically, that political liberty is our best hope for living an ordinary beautiful life.
We also know that liberty is natural; we naturally yearn to be free.
But if freedom is priceless, beautiful, integral to who we are as a species, and natural, why is it so very difficult to secure? Why must we re-dedicate ourselves time and again to its tenuous enshrinement?
I believe the reason is this: Our nature as human beings is neither simple nor simply good. The longing for freedom may well be an impulse rooted in human nature, but it is hardly our only impulse.
We long for liberty, but we also seek to master our surroundings. We seek to control others.
Our natural impulses, in other words, are insufficient to lead to political liberty. We easily convince ourselves that our liberty requires the limitation of someone else’s.
But maximum freedom for one and freedom for all are not the same thing. If they were, our ancient human story would not be so very sad, and we would not need to continually re-dedicate ourselves to the cause of liberty.
Our natural impulses must be educated, refined, enlarged.
And this is where the liberal arts enter the scene. Liberty may be natural to the individual, but political liberty—liberty shared fairly by an entire populace—remains an uncommon and worthy achievement. It must be learned by trial and error, taught, rehearsed, and defended, sometimes by force.
It is not natural instinct that tells us our own liberty is bound to that of our neighbors. That is a learned truth. And it must be learned again and again.
Liberty is never established once and for all.
A liberal arts education teaches the essential truth that we are interconnected. Our own liberty depends upon the liberty of others. Our security depends on the security of others.
We all know that. Of course. This seems pretty basic, to be blunt. But there is a world of difference between repeating the Pledge of Allegiance by rote, or standing respectfully during the National Anthem, and absorbing in our souls the value of political liberty and the preconditions for its flourishing.
A liberal arts education helps us absorb these deeper truths. History, sociology, poetry, psychology, and the arts teach us that liberty, properly understood, is not merely individual but reciprocal. We must discover that our own liberty is no more valuable than our neighbor’s.
We must learn that the rule of law applied only to some is not the rule of law at all but rather selective oppression–or, as James Madison described it, rule by faction.
The universal claims of liberty for all is not an instinctual thought. It must be learned. And re-learned. Our dignity as a race of moral beings requires something higher than each of us enjoying our own liberty while exercising dominion over others: it requires mutual restraint, mutual respect, and mutual commitment to the liberty of all.
Alexander Hamilton, writing in The Federalist Papers, spoke of our collective liberty, dignity, and happiness as a piece—as intertwined. And here, in this place of learning, we remember that our dignity as a people demands liberty not for some, but for all.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for your patience.
What a great affirmation of the quest for Liberty, and a ringing endorsement of an education in the liberal arts! The story on another thread about the Naval Academy “rhymes” with this post, too.
Good speech. It’s not Lincoln’s second inaugural, but it’s a good speech.
@Michael Reynolds: Come on now! How uncharitable! Ha!
Just two days ago I told some folks that I thought that Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural may be the most beautiful piece of prose written by an American. Certainly it’s the most beautiful political speech.
So what choice I do I have but to assume my (longish and sometimes repetitive) speech is the SECOND most beautiful piece of American prose! 🙂 Ha!
Honestly, thank you for reading it. I recognize it’s not your standard OTB piece, and I was kind of sheepish about posting it here. It’s sort of “borderline” appropriate in terms of this being an acceptable venue. So I appreciate your patience and kind words!