Emerson and the Examined Life
Address Given by Richard Geldard
June 28, 2003 Faneuil Hall, Boston
Here in this Cradle of Freedom, our young nation began to frame the language of an authentic independence. The founders, Adams and Jefferson in particular, articulated the two great principles upon which America was to form its national character: namely, the sovereignty of the individual and freedom of worship. A half century later the eloquence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, our Founding Thinker, spelled out the elements of these two principles. In effect, he clarified the experience of independence for us. And at the core of his work, the very marrow of it, was the examined life.