Because…
- “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
– Benjamin Franklin - “I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.”
– Woodrow T. Wilson
- “You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can be free only if I am free.”
– Clarence Darrow
- “I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Because our history….
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
lows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The New Colossus (printed on the base of the Statue of Liberty)
– poem by Emma Lazarus
