On July 27, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt accepted his re-nomination, marking a pivotal moment in American politics as he emphasized the importance of freedom amid rising economic inequality. He framed the struggle for democracy as a 'rendezvous with destiny,' urging citizens to acknowledge the need for equal opportunity in both the political and economic spheres. Roosevelt's speech foreshadowed the global fight against totalitarian regimes during World War II and highlighted the role of the United States in promoting human rights and liberty.

1. Essay 1: 400 – 700 words
On July 27, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt accepted his re-
nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential choice. He
would go on to win re-election that year, again in 1940, and
again in 1944, dying in office in April of 1945 just as the war in
Europe ended. Below is an excerpt from his 1936 acceptance
speech. Using the material provided in this class and your
ability to analyze primary sources, please explain the context
for the speech.
When Roosevelt spoke of a “rendezvous with destiny,” what did
he mean?
To successfully answer this question, you need to address three
other queries related to the text and the material. What
framework would the audience have from previous events?
What values is he asking the audience to embrace? What events
of the next decade is FDR foreshadowing?
.... That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests
freedom from some restraining power ... man’s inventive genius
released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our
people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and
electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass
distribution—all of these combined to bring forward a new
civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to
remain free.
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved
new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of
control over material things. Through new uses of corporations,
banks and securities, new machinery of industry and
agriculture, of labor and capital—all undreamed of by the
fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into
this royal service.
There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands
of small businessmen and merchants who sought to make a
worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They

2. were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest
and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their
obligation to their generation, could never know just where they
fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group
had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete
control over other people’s property, other people’s money,
other people’s labor—other people’s lives. For too many of us
life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no
longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is
no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed
equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal
opportunity in the market place.
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the
immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the
cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different
scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a
spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government
frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some
generations much is given. Of other generations much is
expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with
destiny.
In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people,
who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem
to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold
their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have
yielded their democracy.
I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient
hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a
great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and
destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it
is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a

3. great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the
world. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
The sources:
Alan Seeger, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” (Links to an
external site.) (1916)
Emma Goldman on Patriotism (Links to an external site.) (July
9, 1917)
Lutiant Van Wert describes the 1918 Flu Pandemic
(1918) (Links to an external site.)
W.E.B DuBois, “Returning Soldiers” (Links to an external
site.) (May 1919)
Ellen Welles Page, “A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents” (Links to
an external site.) (1922)
Herbert Hoover, “Principles and Ideals of the United States
Government” (Links to an external site.) (1928)
Huey P. Long, “Every Man a King” and “Share our
Wealth” (Links to an external site.) (1934)
Lester Hunter, “I’d Rather Not Be on Relief” (Links to an
external site.) (1938)
The period of World wars and Great depression in American
history was known to be wrongly dealt with by the US
government. The way these events inform our reading of
Roosevelt’s speech is through the lack of choice the Americans
had to deal with. From the stock market crash to the great
depression, the population had its hands tied by the government
and had no liberty when it came to the way they wanted to live;
the unemployment, and the bankruptcies were things that
prevented them to pursue the happiness their constitution
allowed them to do. On the other side, around the world in the
late 1930s, liberty was nowhere around when it came to war; in
the crash course we covered the story of Mussolini, who ran

4. from country to country not to get drafted in the military and
actually ended up dictating his country, preventing them from
the same liberty he was seeking years before. Franklin D.
Roosevelt knew what his country has gone through under the
lead of Hoover and knew exactly what the people wanted as
citizens of the free world.
This speech over liberty, had a huge impact in the role of the
United States in World War II. Germany was under the
dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, a general who had a really strong
belief that some people who did not fit his criteria did not
deserve to live a normal life in his country. Based on that,
Hitler created internment camps where Jewish, and many other
groups of people were held prisoners and killed. Along with that
was his ally Mussolini who was a man that believed in liberty
and personal choice making, that ended up being a dictator in
his home country, Italy. The US government strongly fought
against those principles during World War 2 and that devotion
to human rights was addressed way beforend its more important
goal during the war was to set free those millions of Germans
who were done wrong by one of their own.
By the end of 1945, the world powers came together and created
the United Nations. The UN primary goal is to maintain peace,
international security, and harmony between the nations.
Because of this organization, the world had been at a certain
level of peace for years now, and worldwide, the US
government is making sure that the human rights are protected
and that the principle of “Liberty, life, and the pursuit of
happiness” is given to every human being.