Student Podcast Series: American Romantics Conversations

Writing by BethRitterguth on Friday, 1 of June , 2007 at 12:46 am

Anthony Trinkle
Conversation Assignment

H= Henry David Thoreau
R= Ralph Waldo Emerson
L= Louisa May Alcott

H: Hi ! Ralph and Louisa, how are you doing today?

R: I am doing great old buddy, thanks for asking.

L: I have seen better times but I am hanging in there.

H: Ralph, how is Concord, Mass., holding up? Remember when we met there in 1841?

R: Yes, those where the good old days, I took you under my wing when you left Concord Academy.

H: You helped me through some troubled times, you are a good friend.

L: Both of you gentlemen are very kind to me and helped me with my writing, I owe a lot of gratitude to both of you. Coming from concord was not so bad after all; I never would have known you guys if it wasn’t for there.

R: How are the guys treating you Louisa?

L: They are fine. I do not want to get married. Freedom is to important to me. I will not have freedom if I get married. I rather live a private life by myself, here in concord.

R: Concord was a lovely place, but let us talk about this hot topic.

L+H: What topic it that?

R: FREEDOM

H: What a great topic to talk about. I have many ideas on freedom. As I am sure both of you do as well.

L: I have to fight for my freedom everyday being a woman. Neither of you know what that is like.

R: No, we can not say that we do.

L: Did you know that I was the first woman to vote in Concord, Massachusetts. I fought day after day for women’s freedom especially the right to vote. Women should be treated fairly just like men are.

H: I agree Louisa. Everyone should have every freedom that anyone else has.

R: Agreed

H: I am sure both of you have read my writing, Civil Disobedience. I speak about slavery and government and freedom. I disagree with a lot of what the government does. “The government is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact, the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it’s not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize” (Civil Disobedience).

L: You have some good points there. So do you think the government is to blame for slavery and the civil war?

H: Yes, I do. The government is to blame. “What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? (Life Without Principle)

R: I think we are on the same path here. If you cannot be free be as free as you can be.
I do not think we should have slaves. I wrote about that in many of my works. How can we have slaves? How do they not deserve the same rights that we have?

L: That is how our government works. You can disagree with them all you want but that does not mean they are going to change their laws. We call our government a democracy but is it really? No, it is not. If it was a democracy we would not have slaves. Everyone would have the same freedoms, white, black, women and men.

H: We need to do something about our government. We do not need to abolish our government rather just improve it. I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government — the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have”. (Civil Disobedience)

R: So we need to improve our government and get them to change, not abolish it and start all over?

L: Yes, it will take to much time and work to start all over again. We have come to far to just get rid of it. We need to all work together and maybe one day we will all have the same freedoms.

H: I think you guys got my point. The two of you must have read “Civil Disobedience”.

R+L: Of course, we did.

Category: BethRitterguth

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