His speeches were not on politics but on government—on the principles of government, of Jeffersonian democracy hardened by frontier individualism. More and more, one principle was emphasized. “Why do thinking people cherish liberty?” he asked. Because the accumulated wisdom of past ages has demonstrated that people are happiest individually and make the greatest advancement collectively when the … essential elements of liberty and independence prevail.… The blessings of happiness and prosperity have flowed from the rock of individual effort. Now it is proposed to subsidize individual effort.
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