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Our great error as a people is that we put an idolatrous trust in our free institutions: as if these, by some magic power, must secure our rights, however we enslave ourselves to evil passions. We need to learn that the forms of liberty are not its essence; that, whilst the letter of a free constitution is preserved, its spirit may be lost; that even its wisest provisions and most guarded powers may be made weapons of tyranny.
—William Ellery Channing (1780-1842)
The leading Unitarian minister of his day, Channing spoke these words in "Spiritual Freedom," an election-day sermon on political and spiritual values, in May 1830. Another excerpt appears in "Singing the Living Tradition" as reading 592, "The Free Mind."
Related Resources
- William Ellery Channing.Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography entry by Frank Carpenter. (UU Historical Society)
- William Ellery Channing: Selected Writings. Ed. by David Robinson. Sources of American Spirituality. Paulist Press, 1985. (Amazon.com)