As the nineteenth century was coming to an end, some U.S. citizens thought their country was betraying the freedom-loving dream of its Founding Fathers. The occasion for the dismay was the annexation of the Philippines, despite considerable Philippine resistance, following in the wake of the Spanish–American War of 1898. Early the following year, the philosopher William James wrote, “We are now openly engaged in crushing out the sacredest thing in this great human world—the attempt of a people long enslaved … to be free.”

Although people strongly disagreed on the exact meaning of freedom during the new century (see below, “Debates on Freedom”), it nevertheless remained a cherished goal of individuals, groups, and nations around the globe. Liberty was the name of a leading U.S. anarchist publication at the start of the century. When the future first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was imprisoned by British authorities in his homeland in 1934, he wrote an autobiographical work entitled Toward Freedom. In 1941 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt gave his “Four Freedoms” speech, in which he proclaimed to Congress that “we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” That same year his wife, Eleanor, and others founded Freedom House, which continued to exist into the twenty-first century, when its website described it as “an independent non-governmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world … [and is] a vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of dictatorships of the far left and the far right.”