Sophia's Children

“Who speaks of liberty while the human mind is in chains?”

~ Frances Wright, writer, abolitionist, social reformer, 1828

Frances “Fanny” Wright lived and died more than half a century before women in the United States won the right to cast a vote and try to ensure that half the population had a voice in political elections.

Wright’s passionate voice on the subject of liberty and freedom, and on behalf of what might now be called “the working classes” — the majority of folx who actually do and make and grow things (etc.) — remains as powerful and pertinent as ever.

In the spirit of Independence Day in the U.S., here is another of Wright’s impassioned and inspiring pleas as a voice for Libertas, and for the ideal, great experiment, and work-in-progress of freedom and democracy:

“The industrious classes have been called the bone and marrow of the nation; but they are in fact the nation itself.

The fruits of their industry are the nation’s wealth; their moral integrity and physical health is the nation’s strength; their ease and independence is the nation’s prosperity; their intellectual intelligence is the nation’s hope.

Where the producing laborer and useful artisan eat well, sleep well, live comfortably, think correctly, speak fearlessly, and act uprightly, the nation is happy, free, and wise.

Has such a nation ever been? No. Can such a nation ever be?

Answer, men of industry in the United States! If such can be, it is here. If such is to be, it must be your work.”

For a more contemporary, recent perspective on Libertas, the laborer, and the economic state of affairs (and an alarm-bell warning to the Plutocrats), read Nick Hanauer’s article, “The Pitchforks Are Coming…For Us Plutocrats.”

Big Love and Feisty Freedom,

Jamie

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a mans character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

Seriously.