The Essence of Freedom

OFF THE WIRE
http://blog.mises.org/author/misesorg_updates_1/
When the news of young America’s novel design for living in freedom reached it, the Old World shook its head with profound skepticism. It would never work, they said. The idea was too “revolutionary,” too “progressive,” too “radical,” and certainly too “liberal.” The prevailing sentiment was that this newfangled system would promptly fall apart, that the Americans were too immature for self-government, and that political anarchy and social chaos would soon engulf them.
Yet today, though we are still youthful as a nation, we have one of the oldest continuous governments in existence. In spite of this conspicuous success it seems to have been a disappointment to some of our modern critics and skeptics. It seems to have fallen short of what they believe it should have accomplished. One of the most baffling of historical mysteries is how the reactionary of 1787 — the man who said it could not be done, the advocate of all-powerful government, the believer in absolutism — could be the “liberal” of today. FULL ARTICLE by Robert Montgomery (1904-1981)