1645: Winthrop on civil vs. natural liberty
John Winthrop said, "If you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties such as Christ allows you, then you will quietly and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in all its administrations of it, for your own good." He created the "Little Speech on Liberty" in 1645.
Winthrop labeled his idea of liberty as "federal or civil liberty," and, as a Puritan minister, he supported the assertion that a higher power made it possible for us to have liberty, or created covenants providing it for humanity. As a consequence, Winthrop considered civil liberty priceless and a more joyous system of being. He says it is "cheerful" and "lawful."
Civil liberty is not the same as natural liberty. Winthrop defined "natural" liberty as demanding that men follow only their passions, leading to them becoming "worse than brute beasts."
People have always needed order and rules, and Winthrop believed that only God could give those things.
We all have to have some discipline; Winthrop wrote the speech because he wanted to address the issue of what he believed to be too much natural liberty affecting the Puritan culture.
1773: Isaac Backus' 'Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty'
Isaac Backus, who had been a Baptist pastor since 1756, wrote this essay to define and fight for proper government ideals and religious liberty.
Backus argued that religious liberty was met when a person could "know, obey, and enjoy the Creator, and all the happiness that He is capable of" and that nothing in "true government" interferes with this religious liberty, as it would then be careful not to, since nations need proper governments to have any security.
"True" government would be close to Scripture, so Backus named it "ecclesiastical" government and dubbed hypocritical, corrupt governments run only by men "civil," a term that overlaps with Winthrop's "civil liberty."
He occasionally alluded to the Aesop fable of the frog enlarging himself to imitate the ox and to the stories found in the Pentateuch (for instance, the story of Adam in the garden) as illustrations to make his points.
Backus also had a concept called "distemper," meaning that people become dissatisfied and greedy, and thought that Adam's desire for the forbidden fruit was the root of humanity's distemper.
He noticed that his fellow ministers suddenly received false accusations; a fellow minister allegedly distributed counterfeit money, and many other Baptist pastors were chosen to be targets for harassment. This may well apply to "distemper," and these accusations may have formed the backstory of Backus creating the essay.
Contemporary liberty of ideas: The secret half-truth of 'Banned Books' Week
Frequently, books recommended during the American Library Association's yearly Banned Books Week were not permanently removed from circulation, but some mistakenly believe that these texts being censored in other libraries would lead to complete unavailability in every library.
Usually, as would be expected from the ALA seemingly using a half-truth to create Banned Books Week, even a cursory search for these tomes shows that the books are available on Amazon or second-hand sites like eBay.
Librarians may benefit from having a "you will still be able to buy the book on Amazon/read it in the adult section" prescript to resolve queries and complaints. The "free speech" would still be present, but no one is forced to read it.
Recommended: Areopagitica and the Resolution of Free Speech Complaints – PJ Media
Today, "natural" liberty could mean too much mixing of liberal content and beliefs with Christianity; Winthrop could see such a point as natural liberty reduced the church to beings worse than the wild animals.