Franklin D. Roosevelt Roosevelt made this speech on December 29, 1940, as the British were
suffering heavy losses in the Battle of the Atlantic. He made clear
that there could be no ultimate peace between the Axis powers and the
United States and called on America to become “the great arsenal
of democracy.” In this State of the Union speech delivered on January 6, 1941, Roosevelt
once more joined the struggle to defend democracy, in words if not in
deeds. He argued for a world based on four freedoms: of speech and expression,
of worship, from want, and from fear. Following the September 11 terrorist
attacks, President George W. Bush evoked the memory of the “four
freedoms” speech in his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address,
when he spoke of the “the non-negotiable demands of human dignity:
the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women,
private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance.”
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