Focus on this artwork and discuss the Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech.
Throughout his political career, Roosevelt championed the cause of human rights. In his annual State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941, which was delivered at a time when Nazi Germany occupied much of Western Europe, he asked the American citizens to support war efforts in various ways. He stated his vision of a better future, founded upon four freedoms: "In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms," some traditional and some new ones: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Roosevelt's January 6 State of the Union address became known as his "Four Freedoms Speech", due to its conclusion that described the President's vision of a worldwide extension of the American ideals of individual liberties summarized by these four freedoms. To put it another way, Roosevelt's speech was known for "identifying the objectives of the war and revealing his hopeful view of the postwar world". The speech helped to awaken Congress and the nation to the dire war calling, articulate ideological aims of the necessary armed conflict, and appeal to the universal American belief in freedom. Domestically, the Four Freedoms were not something Roosevelt was able to achieve through simple legislation, although they provided a theme for American military participation in the war. Of the Four Freedoms, the only two described in the United States Constitution were freedom of speech and freedom of worship.
State of the Union individual liberties State of the Union address Four Freedoms Nazi Germany freedom of worship ties Franklin Delano Roosevelt United States Constitution freedom from want freedom of speech human rights freedom from fear