" Yet I know
that if you turn away from the physical aspects of the country, if you
turn away from the variety of the strains of blood that make up our
great population, if you turn away from the great variations of
occupation and of interest among our fellow-citizens, there is a
spiritual unity in America. I know that there are some things which stir
every heart in America, no matter what the racial derivation or the
local environment, and one of the things that stirs every American is
the love of individual liberty. We do not stand for occupations. We do
not stand for material interests. We do not stand for any narrow
conception even of political institutions; but we do stand for this,
that we are banded together in America to see to it that no man shall
serve any master who is not of his own choosing. And we have been very
liberal and generous about this idea. We have seen great peoples, for
the most part not of the same blood with ourselves, to the south of us
build up polities in which this same idea pulsed and was regnant, this
idea of free institutions and individual liberty, and when we have seen
hands reached across the water from older political polities to
interfere with the development of free institutions on the Western
Hemisphere we have said: "No; we are the champions of the freedom of
popular sovereignty wherever it displays or exercises itself throughout
both Americas.
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