On January 6, 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his eighth State of the Union address, now known as the Four Freedoms speech. The speech was intended to rally the American people against the Axis threat and to shift favor in support of assisting British and Allied troops. Roosevelt's words came at a time of extreme American isolationism; since World War I, many Americans sought to distance themselves from foreign entanglements, including foreign wars. Policies to curb immigration quotas and increase tariffs on imported goods were implemented, and a series of Neutrality Acts passed in the 1930s limited American arms and munitions assistance abroad.
In his address, Roosevelt called for the immediate increase in American arms production, and asked Americans to support his "Lend-Lease" program, which gave Allies cash-free access to US munitions. Most importantly, Roosevelt announced his vision for the world, "a world attainable in our own time and generation," and founded upon four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
These freedoms, Roosevelt declared, must triumph everywhere in the world, and act as a basis of a new moral order. "Freedom," Roosevelt declared, "means the supremacy of human rights everywhere."
The industrial revolution was the force behind this New Imperialism, as it created not only the need for Europe to expand, but the power to successfully take and profitably maintain so many colonies overseas. The industrial revolution created the need for Europe to take over colonies around the world.
Dred Scott was an enslaved African-American man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision"
