“Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.”
– General John Stark of New Hampshire
It has been said that of all the Revolutionary War generals, Stark was the only true Cincinnatus because he truly retired from public life at the end of the war. In 1809, a group of veterans from the Battle of Bennington gathered to commemorate the battle. General Stark, then aged 81, was not well enough to travel, but he sent a letter to his comrades, which closed
“Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.”
The motto Live Free or Die became the New Hampshire state motto in 1945.
“Live free or die” is not the same as a command to bow to an overreaching, overbearing state effort to achieve perceived economic equality at all costs.
Memory eternal, General.
