New Delhi, July 4 -- "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." - Abraham Lincoln

As Americans celebrate 250 years of their freedom, LiveMint's quote of the day by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President who navigated the country through the Civil War, serves as a devastating critique of hypocrisy.

Lincoln argued that freedom is a universal human right, not a conditional privilege that one group can hoard for itself while denying it to another.

When Lincoln said, "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves," he was applying a political version of the Golden Rule. He is pointing out the fundamental absurdity of a slave-owning society demanding its...