ABSTRACT
Freedom is the most powerful word in the American vocabulary, centrally implicated in the meaning of America. Franklin Delano Roosevelt invested World War II with transcendent significance by enunciating four freedoms as global goals: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want. The Dialogic relationship between individualism and community is one of the main themes of American history. Robert Wiebe suggests, "Free individuals formed democratic communities [and] democratic communities sustained free individuals." Initially the North fought simply "to preserve the Union," it is clear that the reason for war having been slavery, freedom from human bondage became the meaning of the war. South seceded to protect the freedom of states and local communities to determine their own social arrangements. The Civil War in this sense was a contest between two opposing ideas of the freedom.
