Return with me to Manhattan’s Central Park, Sunday, May 21, 1944. A large crowd has gathered for “I am an American” Day. The crowd includes many recent immigrants. The weather is mild and dry. 

                  A well-known judge, with the best name ever for a judge, rises to speak. No one much listens to the palaver from patriotic rostrums, but if we do, we might be startled by what Learned Hand has to say.

                  The judge is undertaking to describe what he calls “the Spirit of Liberty.” “We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion,” he begins, sounding more like a preacher than a judge.

Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason, we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land.

Just think! – this judge, from old American stock, is treating recent Americans as equals and all Americans as heroes for our “courage to break with the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land”!

                  The judge muses about the source of this courage. “We sought liberty,” he concludes, “- freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves.” But what did this liberty mean? It was not some law, says this man of law, but faith.  

 Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it

And what are the articles of this faith? Hard to be exact, but if he had to say: 

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten - that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest.

The Nameless One would of course deride this eminent jurist as a F*CKING SOCIALIST. Equality, uncertainty, generosity, humility, self-sacrifice, gratitude as American values? ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING!!!!

                  This faith, like any worth the name, entails responsibility. We must “strive to make (the spirit of liberty) a signal, a beacon, a standard to which the best hopes of mankind will ever turn.”

                  Tears press eye-ward as I type. What happened to this America? What curdled us into the fulminous, fractious, selfish, swaggering, ungrateful, brutal yahoos today’s headlines evoke? No, we the people were never perfect, but from Philadelphia in 1787 to Central Park in 1944 to Washington, D.C. in January 1961, we aspired! And now?

                  Assign Hand’s Spirit of Liberty Address along with the U.S. Constitution, Gettysburg Address and Sermon on the Mount as required reading for our dismal hour. In darkness we must recall the light, with these torches rekindle our hope. We can be better, maybe even a little bit good. Let’s pray.

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Judge Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty Address

May 21, 1944 

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a commonconviction, a common devotion.

Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty - freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This then we sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few - as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty?

I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten - that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an American which has never been, and which may never be - nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it - yet in the spirit of America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America so prosperous, and safe, and contented, we shall have failed to grasp its meaning, and shall have been truant to its promise, except as we strive to make it a signal, a beacon, a standard to which the best hopes of mankind will ever turn; In confidence that you share that belief, I now ask you to raise your hand and repeat with me this pledge:

I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands--One nation, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.