![]() That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example, during the quarter century of wars following the French Revolution. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas. ![]() What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition, to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. But in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence. We had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful commerce. It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other Continents. Today, thank God, one hundred and thirty million Americans, in forty-eight States, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity. Fortunately, only one of these-the four-year War Between the States-ever threatened our national unity. Since the permanent formation of our Government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. I use the word "unprecedented," because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today. I address you, the Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress: ![]() war bond drive and went on a national tour to raise money for the war effort.Īfter the war, the four freedoms appeared again, embedded in the Charter of the United Nations. ![]() After winning public approval, the paintings served as the centerpiece of a massive U.S. Although the federal government initially rejected Rockwell's offer to create paintings on the four freedoms theme, the images were publicly circulated when The Saturday Evening Post, one of the nation's most popular magazines, commissioned and reproduced the paintings. These symbolized America's war aims and gave the American people a mantra to hold onto during the war.Īs America became more engaged in World War II, painter Norman Rockwell created a series of paintings illustrating the four freedoms as international war goals that went beyond just defeating the Axis powers. In the series, he translated abstract concepts of freedom into four scenes of everyday American life. His "four essential human freedoms" included some phrases already familiar to Americans from the Bill of Rights, as well as some new phrases: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. In his Four Freedoms Speech, Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that all people should have. ![]() Alerting Congress and the nation to the necessity of war, Roosevelt articulated the ideological aims of the war, and appealed to Americans' most profound beliefs about freedom. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people deserved.Īt a time when Western Europe lay under Nazi domination, Roosevelt presented a vision in which the American ideals of individual liberties should be extended throughout the world. In his 1941 State of the Union Address to Congress, with World War II underway in Europe and the Pacific, FDR asked the American people to work hard to produce armaments for the democracies of Europe, to pay higher taxes, and to make other wartime sacrifices. Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement, making the case for continued aid to Great Britain and greater production of war industries at home. During 1940, stimulated by a press conference in which he discussed long-range peace objectives, he started collecting ideas for a speech about various rights and freedoms. Very early in his political career, as state senator and later as Governor of New York, President Roosevelt was concerned with human rights in the broadest sense. ![]()
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