Justice David Brewer on Free, Self-Governing Americans

David J. Brewer (1837-1910) served as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court for 20 years, from 1889 to 1910. He strongly advocated equal rights and respect for women, worked for equal opportunities for black Americans, and supported freedom of association among workers. In a series of lectures delivered at Yale University on American Citizenship (1902), Justice Brewer explained what it meant to be an American in terms of defining beliefs and ideas:

“This is a government of and by and for the people. It rests upon the thought that to each individual belong the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It affirms that the nation exists not for the benefit of one man, or set of men, but to secure to each and all the fullest opportunity for personal development. It stands against the governments of the Old World in that there the thought is that the individual lives for the nation; here the nation exists for the individual…

“Far be it for me to affirm that we have lived up to our ideals. I am making no Fourth of July speech. On the contrary, our history has disclosed many shortcomings. We have not been free from the weaknesses of human nature. But, notwithstanding all our failures, nowhere has there been a closer living to the ideals of popular government, and nowhere are the possibilities of future success greater.

“If, therefore, the chief object of national existence is to secure to each individual the fullest protection in all inalienable rights and the fullest opportunity for personal advancement, and if this nation has come nearer than any other to the realization of this ideal, and if by virtue of its situation, its population, and its development, it has the greatest promise of full realization of this ideal in the future, surely it must be that the obligations of its citizens to it are nowhere surpassed.” (pp. 14, 17-18)