1. Freedom in early Civilizations -- India, Greece, Rome -- Desire for freedom is found throughout history

India -- King Ashoka (273 BC - 232 BC) was considered a model monarch throughout the ancient Buddhist world for compassionate government.

In 256 BC he issued the Seven Pillar Edicts promoting religious tolerance and Buddhist principles of compassion and justice. Good can be attained in different ways, Ashoka said, "but all of them have as their root restraint in speech, that is, not praising one's own religion, or condemning the religion of others without good cause. I f there is cause for criticism, it should be done in a mild way.

"But it is better to honor other religions for this reason: By so doing, one's own religion benefits, and so do other religions, while doing otherwise harms one's own religion and the religions of others. Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought 'Let me glorify my own religion,' only harms his own religion."

Greece -- Free political speech
The human need for freedom is expressed in every culture and in every age, but the Greek city states -- especially Athens -- attained a degree of freedom unparalleled in the ancient world. Rights of free men (not women or slaves) reached a zenith during the Golden Age of Pericles 443 - 429 BC. Liberty and uninhibited free speech, called parrhesia, were highly esteemed.

When citizens attended assembly, heralds asked "What man has good advise to give the polis and wishes to make it know" Near the meeting place was the Areopagus, the market in Athens where the courts also met. Ares was the Greek name for Mars, the god of war. (As an example of the recurrence of historical symbols, John Milton used the term Areopagetica for an essay describing the marketplace of ideas. )

Despite the ideal of free speech, some people challenged the system. In 399 BC, the Athenian philosopher Socrates was given a choice: live in exile or die by drinking hemlock. He chose hemlock, and is seen at left taking the cup while his followers grieve. Socrates' crime was have corrupted the youth of Athens with his free thinking. "I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live," he said.

Cincinnatus, citizen soldier

Omnia relinquit servare Republicam --
"He gave up everything to preserve the Republic." (Motto of the Order of Cincinnatus).

After the end of the Revolutionary War, former officers in the American army formed the Society of the Cincinnati,
taking the name from the Roman general.
Later, the city of Cincinnati was also named for the general.

Rome -- Virtue and sacrifice for the Republic
One reason for Rome's greatness was that, in its early years, it was a free republic. Like their counterparts in Greek city-states, Romans had political freedom, including some freedom of speech. However, even though there was no official state censorship, people were routinely exiled, imprisoned or executed for criticizing the government too vocally. At the end of the Republic, beginning with the reign of Julius Ceasar (49 B.C.) even limited political rights were lost.

One important early figure in Rome was Cincinnatus, who epitomized the citizen-soldier for many American revolutionaries. In 458 BC (according to tradition), Cincinnatus was plowing his fields when messengers arrived to tell him he had been named dictator to defend the city againt an uprising. He took up the supreme command, defeated Rome's enemies and returned to his farm, all within 16 days. He also refused the honors that came with his military victories. George Washington was sometimes called an American Cincinnatus because he too held his command only until the defeat of the British and, at a time when he could have chosen to exercise great political power, instead returned as soon as he could to cultivating his lands.

One advocate of free speech was Cato the Younger (Marcus Porcius Cato) (95-46 BC). He was the chief political antagonist of Julius Caesar and the Triumvirate and was called "the conscience of Rome" by Roman historian Livy. The Cato Letters of the colonial period (early 1700s) and the Washington-based Cato Institute of the late 20th century are references to the Roman philosopher.

In terms of foreign policy, Roman rulers tended to allow local cultures and leaders to remain intact after conquest, and to show tolerance for the free exchange of ideas. Pliny the younger (c. 100 AD) writing to a Roman consul departing for Greece: "Consider that you are sent ... to regulate the condition of free cities ... to a society of men who ... breathe the spirit of manhood and liberty ... Revere their Gods...(and) their ancient glory ...Grant to every one his full dignity, priviledge, and yes, the indulgence of his very vanity ..."

This regard for the freedom of other peoples greatly eroded during the Empire period, and those who spoke out directly against the government or its policies were executed.

Mali and Songhai Empires -- Scholarship and freedom

The name Timbuktu conjures an image of remoteness today, partly because it is located in the middle of the western Sahara in what is now Mali, and partly because of the difficulty Europeans had entering and trading in Timbuktu during the 18th and 19th centuries.

In fact, the fabled African city of gold and the seat of the Mali and Sanghai empires was at its peak as a great center of Islamic culture and learning in the 14th through 17th centuries. It flourished as a center of academic activity, and at the time had more professors and students than at Sorbonne University in Paris or at Oxford, England.

A UN-funded effort is underway to preserve manuscripts from the university there, such as the one at left. It is shedding new light on this remarkable civilization.

Magna Carta (1215).

The Norman invasion of England in 1066 created a two-tiered society with many inequities. In 1215, a group of English barons forced the Norman King John to sign the Magna Carta (Latin for great charter). It guaranteed fundamental rights such as trial by jury and due process. At first, these rights applied only to English nobles, but over time they were extended to all. The Magna Carta was the end of absolute power for English monarchs, although attempts by James I and James II in the 1600s to restore absolute power resulted in two major political upheavals -- the English Civil War (1642) and the Glorious Revolution (1688).

Despite the Magna Carta, free political or religious speech was not tolerated.

In 1275, Parliament outlawed "any slanderous News ... or false news or tales where by discord or slander may grow between the King and the people ..."

Persecution of Jan Hus (Germany) 1415

Jan Huss (1371-1415), dean of the school of philosophy at the University of Prague, was martyr to the cause of religious freedom.

Huss was outraged at the selling of indulgences and openly debated various claims about the papacy from the pulput. He was excommunicated for insubordination in 1412. Three years later he was invited to a conference with a firm guarantee of safety, but was betrayed by the pope, found guilty of heresy and burned at the stake. Hus' philosophy of religion lives on in the Moravian church.

Printing spurs Protestant Reformation

The rise of printing was a major factor in undermining the authority of the church and unifying nation states with a common language.

Johann Gutenberg was probably one of three people who developed moveable type at about the same time (1440s) in Germany and Holland. The immediate impact was to make the Bible and religion in general accessible to ordinary people without the help of priests. But the long-term impact was to completely revolutionize European culture.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) used the printing press extensively after going public with his 98 theses  Oct. 31, 1517 -- basically, a list of demands for church reform. Like Hus he is outraged at the sale of indulgences. But by this time, ideas spread rapidly through the power of the press.

Church persecution in Counter-Reformation

Many thousands of people were imprisoned and executed during the attempt to stop Protestantism called the Counter-Reformation. The struggle came to a head in England around 1555 when "Bloody Mary," the Catholic queen, took the throne after the death of Protestant King Henry VIII. Hundreds were executed, including the three bishops of Oxford. (Depicted in the engraving to the left).

Another famous persecution of this era was that of Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). Galileo was an Italian mathematician and a professor at the Universties of Padua and Pisa. He carried out many studies in mathematics and technology involving water pumps, engines, compasses and telescopes and other instruments.

Galileo's astronomical observations convinced him of the truth of Nicholas Copernicus' heliocentric theory. Between 1612 and 1632 he skirted dangerous confrontation with church authorities, but was finally forced to recant his views publicly under threat of torture.

Millions of people were killed in the name of Christianity during the religious wars of the 1500s and 1600s Most of the slaughter took place on the continent of Europe.

Religious fighting in France began with a political struggle and a series of massacres in the 1560s. It quickly spread. The fighting more or less ended with the Edict of Nantes, issued on April 13, 1598 by Henry IV of France, granting French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in a Catholic nation. The revocation of the edict in 1685 did not lead to more massacres, but did lead to an exodus of French intellectuals and craftsmen.

In the Netherlands, fighting took place between Protestands and Catholic troops loyal to King Phillip II of Spain. Germany was torn apart by the Thirty Years War between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union, (1616-1648) and death toll was around 14 million.

In England, the Nov. 5, 1605 attempt to blow up the Protestant King and Parliament by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic revolutionaries is remembered to this day.

One European religious war still lingers in Northern Ireland. The historic massacres of the Catholics by Protestants, such as the one led by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), is still remembered in Ireland today.

John Milton (1608-1674) -- The marketplace of ideas
The poet most famous for Paradise Lost is also known in the history of free speech for a 1644 plea to Parliament in a speech he called the Areopagetica: "Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" (The name Areopagetica was a reference to the Athenian marketplace and also to a speech by Isocrates called the Areopagitic Discourse or Areopagiticus (about 355 BCE).

This period was time of religiously inspired revolution and civil war in England. Parliament broke with the king, and in 1649, religious strife led to the execution of King Charles I.

In many cases, people who rebelled at intolerance of the Catholic Church were themselves intolerant. Milton, for example, did not want to let Catholics publish freely.

But some Puritans, such as the more radical Levellers, were in favor of complete religious freedom. They said religious censorship kept people ignorant and that ignorance "fitted only to serve the unjust ends of tyrants and oppressors."

English Civil War and Glorious Revolution
After King Charles I was executed in 1649, Oliver Cromwell and then his son Richard ruled. But Richard was unfit and in 1660, Britons welcomed Charles II back from exile. Soon Parliament and the king are at odds again. Charles II didn't oppose Parliament openly but worked behind the scenes. As a result, Charles II ensured that English kings were firmly in power again, although a king would never rule without Parliament again. In 1688 James II tried, and he was deposed.

The English call the rebellion of 1688 the Glorious Revolution because there was a major change of government effected without bloodshed. James fled England without a fight. Parliament called in William, the ruler of Holland, and made him king. Parliament was now firmly in command of English politics. William agreed to religious toleration and to Parliament's claims to authority.

In 1689, William and Mary agreed to a Declaration of Rights that guaranteed basic freedom to British subjects to petition the king and to bear arms. It also prohibited excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. While the British Bill of Rights protected fewer individual rights than the American Bill of Rights adopted a century later, it was an acknowledgement that Britons were due a large measure of freedom.

Also, in 1689 the Act of Toleration acknowledges civil rights for Roman Catholics and Dissenters. (See the Anglican Timeline ) In 1693, a college named for William and Mary was founded in Virginia.

Summing up the English Civil War by comparing Rome and England, Voltaire said:

" The Romans never knew the dreadful folly of religious wars, an abomination reserved for devout preachers of patience and humility. Marious and Sylla, Caesar and Pompey, Anthony and Augustus, did not draw their swords and set the world in a blaze merely to determine whether the flamen should wear his shirt over his robe, or his robe over his shirt... But here follows a more essential difference between Rome and England, which gives the advantage entirely to the later - viz., that the civil wars of Rome ended in slavery, and those of the English in liberty. The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil... " (Link to Voltaire's letters)

John Locke (1632-1704) -- Social Contract, Tolerance
An English philosopher, naturalist and physician who helped start the Enlightenment in England and France, Locke's ideas were a major inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, as well as inspiring the framework of government in many other nations. He was the author of, among other works, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The book opposed press licensing in 1694 and advanced two important ideas:

1) People and government had a social contract and government existed to serve the people, not the other way around;
2) People had natural rights to life, liberty and property.

David Hume (1711-76) -- Press freedom is no threat
Journalist and historian who rejected absolutes, (and who inspired the opposing view in Immanuel Kant), andwhose philosophy echoed Greek stoics and Romans like Cicero. He wrote Essays, Moral and Political in two volumes in 1741 and 1742 and a history of England.

Hume saw freedom of th press as offering no threat to rulers, however much it might be abused.

Press freedom can not excite popular tumults or rebellions because "a man reads a book or pamphlet alone coolly. There is none present from whom he can catch the passion by contagion."

John Stuart Mill (1773-1836) Scotish philosopher / historian expanded on Milton's Marketplace of ideas by arguing that:

1) A censored opinion may be true and the accepted view may be in error
2) Even error may contain particle of truth
3) Truth may be held as prejudice, not rationally
4) Truth loses vitality if not contested from time to time.

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

Francois Voltaire (1694-1778) -- Defend your right to say it.

By far the most famous of the French philosophs, (Francois-Marie Arouet,) known by his assumed name of Voltaire, was a prolific journalist, novelist and political thinker whose writing had a tremendous impact on the American revolution. He was educated by the Jesuits and began writing verse early. He was twice exiled from Paris and twice imprisoned in the Bastile. In 1726 he fled to England. Some years after his return he became historian of France, and gentleman of the French king's bedchamber; from 1750 to 1753 he lived at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, an enlightened despot, but he found they did not agree on many things. He spent the last period of his life, from 1758 to 1778, on his estate of Ferney, near Geneva, where he produced much of his best work. He also helped Benjamin Franklin advance the cause of the American Revolution in Paris during the late 1770s.

Voltaire believed, more than anything else, in toleration, the rule of law and freedom of opinion.

Links to Voltaie's writing:
On the absurdity of loving a Patrie and
on the English Parliament

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) -- Separation of powers

Montesquieu argued in his 1748 book On the spirit of the laws that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials. He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this.

Montesquieu called the idea of dividing government power into three branches the "separation of powers." He thought it most important to create separate branches of government with equal but different powers. That way, the government would avoid placing too much power with one individual or group of individuals.

Montesquieu also believed that if the powers of government were limited, people would be free to follow their natural inclinations and do the right thing.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)- Noble Savage

The "mad Socrates" of the French Revolution, author of the Social Contract, Rousseau believed that people in their native state are essentially good. He is remembered for the idea of the "noble savage."

Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is considered a forebear of modern socialism and Communism (see Karl Marx).

Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority. One of the primary principles of Rousseau's political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve.

Thomas Jefferson on religious freedom

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." -- Thomas Jefferson (Bartlett's 16th Ed., p.343)

"What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors? And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness, but a bigotted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers, and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things, and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots, rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization? And how much more encouraging to the achievements of science and improvement is this, than the desponding view that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are, we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers. This doctrine is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State; the tenants of which, finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations, and monopolies of honors, wealth, and power, and fear every change, as endangering the comforts they now hold". -- Thomas Jefferson, Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia

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