To Make Freedom Work

“The freer a country, that is, the more action is guaranteed to every individual, the more necessary becomes a well-founded and general knowledge of political duty.  Without it, that free action will serve but for evil ends.

“No doubt can be entertained, but that there are at all times, among millions, some individuals endowed with great gifts, with talents equal to those of the eminent and successful men of happier periods, but they cannot make and construct a state, and breathe into it the inspiration of life, nor can they guide it by the noblest principles, if the people do not correspond to their exertions, or if the times do not call upon them.”

-Francis Lieber, Manual of Political Ethics