OUR STORY IN THE LIBERTY WALK

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan devoted his presidency to the defeat of Communism and the renewal of America’s founding principles. A popular former governor of California, Reagan promised to shrink the federal bureaucracy, to cut taxes to spur economic growth, and to defend the “consent of the governed” against the Progressive vision of an unelected administrative state. Reagan also declared the Soviet Union an “evil empire” that would be relegated to die on the “ash heap of history.”

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Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was a runaway slave who became one of America’s greatest orators and writers, a lifelong champion of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and a friend of presidents. Douglass visited Hillsdale College—an anti-slavery college whose 1844 charter committed it to accept students “without regard to race, sex, or national origin”—in the midst of the Civil War. On January 21, 1863, he delivered a speech titled “Popular Error and Unpopular Truth.” During this visit, Douglass posed for a photo (featured here) that would later be used for his visiting card and is reported to have been his favorite. The photo was located and purchased by Hillsdale College in 2004. Douglass spoke again at Hillsdale in 1888.

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Thomas Jefferson

With the War for Independence over a year old and hope for a peaceful resolution nonexistent, the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five—including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—to draft a document “declar[ing] the causes which impel [the American colonies] to the separation.” 33-year-old Jefferson composed the initial draft, completing it in seventeen days. The committee submitted its draft to Congress on June 28, 1776, and on July 2, Congress voted for independence. On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as the third president. As president, he is perhaps most famous for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled the size of the United States. A lifelong champion of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s dedication to the American spirit made him an inspiration to Hillsdale College.

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