The Challenge to the Youth of Today

- 6 - what is liberty. I know of no adequate and comprehensive defini- tion. Conditions and circumstances usually define the term. On April 18, 1864, in a speech at Baltimore, Maryland, President Lincoln said:- "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some, the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable [sic] things, called by the same name---liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable [sic] names—liberty and tyranny. "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, es- pecially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and th