Cass Sunstein: The Second Bill of Rights ... FDR's Greatest Speech

Cass Sunstein, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 7, 2004):

On January 11, 1944, the United States was involved in its longest conflict since the Civil War. The effort was going well. In a remarkably short period, the tide had turned sharply in favor of the Allies. Ultimate victory was no longer in serious doubt. The real question was the nature of the peace.

At noon, America's optimistic, aging, self-assured, wheelchair-bound president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, delivered his State of the Union address to Congress. His speech wasn't elegant. It was messy, sprawling, unruly, a bit of a pastiche, and not at all literary. But because of what it said, this address, proposing a Second Bill of Rights, has a strong claim to being the greatest speech of the 20th century.

In the last few years, there has been a lot of discussion of World War II and the Greatest Generation. We've heard much about D-Day, foreign occupations, and presidential leadership amid threats to national security. But the real legacy of the leader of the Greatest Generation and the nation's most extraordinary president has been utterly lost. His Second Bill of Rights is largely forgotten, although, ironically, it has helped shape countless constitutions throughout the world -- including the interim Iraqi constitution. To some extent, it has guided our own deepest aspirations. And it helps us to straighten out some national confusions that were never more prominent, and more pernicious, than they are today.

It's past time to understand it.

Roosevelt began his speech by emphasizing that war was a shared endeavor in which the United States was simply one participant. Now that the war was in the process of being won, the main objective for the future could be" captured in one word: Security." Roosevelt argued that the term"means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors," but also"economic security, social security, moral security." He insisted that"essential to peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want."

Moving to domestic affairs, Roosevelt emphasized the need to bring security to all American citizens. He argued for a"realistic tax law -- which will tax all unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate cost of the war to our sons and daughters." We" cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people -- whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth -- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure," he declared.

At that point, the speech became spectacularly ambitious. Roosevelt looked back, not entirely approvingly, to the framing of the Constitution. At its inception, the nation had protected" certain inalienable political rights -- among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures," he noted. But over time, those rights had proved inadequate, as"we have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence."

"We have accepted, so to speak, a Second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed."

Then he listed the relevant rights:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation.

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

The right of every family to a decent home.

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

The right to a good education.

Having cataloged these eight rights, Roosevelt again made clear that the Second Bill of Rights was a continuation of the war effort."America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world." He concluded that government should promote security instead of paying heed"to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying."....