Andrew Hamilton defended John Peter Zenger and free speech because he knew how fundamental free speech and the ability to speak against the government was to the health of the relatively new United States--which prided itself on liberty.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his speech "Four Freedoms", in 1941, mentioned some things that can be considered inconsistent with the US policy, because when he says: 1<em>) "The need of the moment....is to meet this foreign peril. For </em><em>our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency</em><em>" and 2) "Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been </em><em>based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity ofall our fellow men..." </em>are not consistent with all the discriminatory practices blacks faced at that time.
President Lincoln's First Inaugural Address focused on reassuring the Southern states that the president would not try to strip them of their slaves and that he would try to find a way to help them secure slavery if it would make them happy.
