[John Peterson]

"Freedom versus Liberty" written by Brad Cummings

The Sons of Liberty, the Liberty Tree, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty—liberty, liberty, liberty— our Founding Fathers were enamored with the idea of liberty. But why?
To them it was a sacred trust, a precious possession, a privilege to be stewarded, and a right they would be responsible to give an answer for. Liberty meant everything to them. It was something worth fighting for, and yes, even dying for. It was far more valuable than mere freedom.
Don’t they largely mean the same thing? They are indeed synonyms; and yes, given their interchangeability in language, in many respects they often refer to the same general concept, but in the mind of many of our Founders there did appear to be an important distinction.
Freedom is defined as independence, the license to do as one wants, the permission to do as you please. It means you have the right to do something, a clear measure of granted authority or autonomy for self-determination or self-government; but it has one potential deficiency--it can also be narrowly defined as only having the permission to do it. “Permission is necessarily granted by someone, which means freedom can be revoked by that someone.”1 While to some, it may seem like an unnecessary splitting of hairs, liberty, while meaning much the same thing, carries with it one particular irrevocable nuance of profound implication –it has everything to do with the source.
Thomas Jefferson described liberty in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Liberty, second only to life, is a right endowed by the Creator. It is a part of you, just as your mind, your will, your emotions, and spirit. It cannot be revoked. Liberty provides for the protection of an individual’s rights, expressly because with it we have been endowed by our Creator with the capacity for self-government. Freedom is something that a government grants; liberty is something I own which government cannot take away.
In comparison to liberty, freedom is somewhat feeble. A certain freedom can be revoked, and my rights violated or rescinded, but liberty cannot be rightfully violated by anyone except the Creator or the individual who owns the liberty. If an individual encroaches on others, he makes an explicit decision to violate the laws of civilization. This individual choice provides authorities power to step in and protect other people’s liberty. Under the system of liberty this is the only case in which an individual’s rights can be violated—at the individual’s own choice.
Under Freedom, others can negate an individual’s rights any time they can acquire enough political power to do so. It is called majority rule, and with it you can vote someone else’ freedom out of existence; but not so with liberty, because that is an endowed right from our Creator. America’s Founders understood this and that is why they demanded liberty as opposed to simple freedom under a government. This is also why our Founding Fathers were at pains to establish a republican government as opposed to a democracy.

“We are forming a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.”
-- Alexander Hamilton

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
-- John Adams

“A simple democracy is the devil’s own government”
--Benjamin Rush

Contrary to what most assume, America is not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. In a democracy, the people are the ultimate authority and they exercise their lawmaking power by majority rule. A republic is a representative form of government where authority rests the officials that have been elected by the people. But what makes America unique in all the world as a republic, is that the sovereign authority is not the elected representatives, but rather the constitution that they are subject to. It operates by the consent of the governed in conjunction with the rule of Law. As John Adams described, America is “a government of laws, not of men” where much of its body of law is based on the Bible (For a more complete discussion of this subject, please see the commentary in Exodus 18:21 “America’s Political Form of Government” and Deuteronomy 5 “The Ten Commandments: The Basis for a Free and Civilized Society”).
With freedom, individual rights are subject to interpretation by the person granting permission. In a democracy, your individual rights and freedom are granted to you by the government, and are subject to interpretation by rule of the majority; thus they can also be taken away justly or unjustly by majority rule. Liberty is altogether different. It is one of the inalienable rights granted to us by God, and in our republic protected by our Constitution, and thus can never be rightfully taken away, even by a despotic government or unjust majority.
It gives new meaning to Patrick Henry’s famous cry in seeking to convince the Virginia House of Burgess to pass a resolution authorizing the release of the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War, “Give me Liberty or give me death.”

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
-- Benjamin Franklin