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Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Four Freedoms

delivered 6 January, 1941

Mr. Speaker, members of the 77

th

Congress:

I address you, the members of this new Congress, at a moment unprecedented in

the history of the union. I use the word “unprecedented” because at no previous

time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.

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. And,

fortunately, only one of these—the four-year war between the States—ever

threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, 130,000,000 Americans in

forty-eight States have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.

It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often has been disturbed by events in

other continents. We have 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. But in no case has a serious threat been raised against our national

safety or our continued independence.

What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at

all times maintained opposition—clear, definite opposition—to any attempt to lock

us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went

past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced

isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.

That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example,

in the early days during the quarter century of wars following the French

Revolution. While the Napoleonic struggle did threaten interests of the United

States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in Louisiana, and while

we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to peaceful trade, it is

nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain nor any other nation was

aiming at domination of the whole world.

And in like fashion, from 1815 to 1914—ninety-nine years—no single war in Europe

or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or against the future of any

other American nation.

Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish

itself in this hemisphere. And friendly strength; it is still a friendly strength.

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Even when the World War broke out in 1914 it seemed to contain only small threat

of danger to our own American future. But as time went on, as we remember, the

American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might

mean to our own democracy.

We need not overemphasize imperfections in the peace of Versailles. We need not

harp on failure of the democracies to deal with problems of world

reconstruction. We should remember that the peace of 1919 was far less unjust

than the kind of pacification which began even before Munich, and which is being

carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent

today.

The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.

I suppose that every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment

being directly assailed in every part of the world—assailed either by arms or by

secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and

promote discord in nations that are still at peace.

During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of

democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and

small. And the assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great

and small.

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to “give to the

Congress information of the state of the union,” I find it unhappily necessary to

report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are

overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four

continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe

and Asia, Africa and Australia will be dominated by conquerors. And let us

remember that the total of those populations in those four continents, the total of

those populations and their resources greatly exceeds the sum total of the

population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere—yes, many

times over.

In times like these it is immature— and, incidentally, untrue—for anybody to brag

that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back,

can hold off the whole world.

No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or

return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or

freedom of religion—or even good business. Such a peace would bring no security

for us or for our neighbors. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase

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