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Upon entering my new vocation location, I was confronted by a poster with a certain quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson:  “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  I felt the rush of recollection, followed by simultaneous shock and excitement.  I remember that particular quote from years ago, when I was an ignorant student of another sort.  I had used a slightly different version of the quote, though it was also attributed to Jefferson:  “Eternal vigilance is the price of peace.”  So, which was it?  Then I thought:  what a great segue for yet another website post on a favorite topic of mine!

Liberty or Peace?

It turns out these two similar quotes are attributed to many well-known wordsmiths, statesmen, military strategists and freedom fighters alike, but the last word (liberty or peace) is sometimes different.  Not to take away from its intended use, I believe the meaning of both quotes is perhaps best summed up by Thomas Paine, in his renowned Crisis Papers (The American Crisis, vol. 4) of 1777:  “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”  So, we understand these authors intended to say the same thing, but I assess peace and liberty as not one in the same.
 
As for Thomas Jefferson, which was it, liberty or peace?  I had to know.  Having studied Jefferson, and as an admirer of his Lockean (natural law) political theory, I had an inclination he chose liberty over peace.  I was correct.  It wasn’t a difficult conclusion, though, considering Thomas Jefferson once wrote to a colleague these words:  “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants…God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms.”  Does this sound like a man obsessed with liberty, or peace? 

Indeed, Jefferson is quoted as a true lover of liberty, having learned early from his founding compatriots, affirming, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”  The absence of security was less of a fear to Jefferson than was the absence of liberty.  Indeed Jefferson submitted, “It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.”  This makes Jefferson inherently a libertarian.  Yay!

The Sons of Liberty

To bring peace, we attempt to establish security.  What does that do to our liberties?  As it turns out, I’m not the first to pontificate on the differences between security and liberty.  Our founding fathers were also enamored with the subject, and I will try to quote them as they are relevant.  At the outset, the pursuit of liberty does not necessarily bring security.  What’s worse, the pursuit of security rarely, if ever, brings liberty.  If a country is established on security first, its citizens will quickly become its subjects as their liberties disappear to maintain peace.  Benjamin Franklin asserted the following in 1759, many years before this nation’s conception:  “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  A country founded on liberty, which is God’s gift to man, has the ability to thrive.  As George Bernard Shaw put it, “Liberty is the breath of life to nations.”  Our nation has the shortest and longest-living Constitution in the recorded history of free nations.  I believe that is not mere coincidence.  Our founding fathers had individual freedoms foremost on their minds when the Constitution was drafted, restricting not the citizen, but the state.  The U.S. Supreme Court, the supposed guardians of our Constitution, upheld this belief in their ruling in the American Communications Association v. Douds case of 1957, stating, “It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

How then is security established?  Obviously, some degree of protection is required, calling for the age-old balance.  For the survival of the citizens and the state, some restrictions must be placed on individual liberties, our nation’s foremost natural resource, to provide security.  Preserving our liberties and providing some semblance of peace requires much work, and is the essential duty of government.  There is ideology surrounding the decisions being made.  Even if the general public never sees the struggle, it’s still happening.

Patrick Henry gave these basic instructions for our lawmakers:  “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.  Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.  Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.”  When legislation is passed that restricts individual liberty for the sake of collective security, it should be done so with trepidation or even lamentation.  Consider that Dr. Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning economist warned, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”  Note here that unity, as an American value, can be deceiving, as can equality, especially when used as a trump card to liberty.

Heaven on Earth

The significant differences between liberty and peace escaped me years ago, but today, I find the gulf between these two theories to be a universal theme, not only to the practice of government, but to life in general.  When looking for a job, for instance, it may seem tempting to choose one with a certain amount of job security and little chance of failure.  At the same time, that job will give you little chance of separating from the pack and often, no sense of achievement.  The freedom to succeed (or fail) is negated by the amount of security you now have.  In the job field, the balance between freedom and security often equates privilege with responsibility.  It’s interesting how you give up some freedoms while gaining others.  But I digress.

It is of note that Jefferson lists life, liberty, and the pursuit, not the promise, of happiness as inalienable rights given to us by our Creator.  This I wholly believe; I also believe anyone who restricts any of those rights is answerable to our Creator.  When we try to promise happiness, though, we are trying to create Heaven on Earth.  When we do that, tragedy often ensues, resulting in the loss of both freedom and security.  Thomas Paine warned us that, “The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes,” or as Karl Popper assured us, “The attempt to make Heaven on Earth invariably produces Hell.”  Whether creating communities as separatist ranches in West Texas or social communes in Northern Siberia, seclusion can lead to delusion, and eventually reality, as they know it, can spiral completely out of control.

We are not called to create Heaven on Earth, though, neither by God nor by man.  James Madison wrote in the Federalist papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”  Collective security depends on the goodness of man, and as men are neither angels as citizens or in government, we are left to balance freedom with security, a theme not new to those who frequent this website.  Again, I will say that when unsure, we should err on the side of freedom.  And yet again, I turn to Thomas Paine, who told us in his most-famous Crisis Letter that, “Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

Personal Responsibility

So we return to the original statement, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  Obviously, such a short sentence carries serious implications.  Eternal vigilance beckons as the responsibility of all citizens.  Consider our Greek ancestors who loved freedom, but ultimately lost it.  In 1770, Sir Edward Gibbon stated, “In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom.  When the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.”

Freedom may bring prosperity, but not necessarily peace.  Atonement and appeasement may not be on the menu; conflicts may ensue.  John Stuart Mill reassured us, however, that, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”  Samuel Adams, founder of the first Sons of Liberty, circa 1765, and organizer of the Boston Tea Party, challenged his countrymen by saying, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” 

Samuel Adams may seem harsh in this criticism, but he is simply reacting to the indifference in citizens he saw as a plague.  Your attention to public affairs is a simple sacrifice for the posterity of liberty.  Pay attention.  In comparison to the price paid by some for liberty’s sake, it is a small sacrifice.  Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of liberty… or as Plato, 4th Century BC, put it, “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“Maybe I did well and maybe I led the battle but nobody ever said we were going to win this thing at any point in time.  Eternal vigilance is required and there have to be people who step up to the plate, who believe in liberty, and who are willing to fight for it.” – Milton Friedman, 1912-2006