Of all values, liberty has become the first principle of American political and social life and remains the ultimate banner word upon which any cause hoping to gain traction will center its rhetoric.   At other times and places values such as a belief in God and religious revelation, or obedience to a monarch were supreme.  In America, however, liberty has remained the core value upon which major policies are ultimately justified.  The need to defend and promote liberty at home and abroad has been the decisive cause mentioned in every declaration of war by a United States president.  Nations that do not encourage liberty are simply thought of as wrong; or in recent decades, in need of rebuilding.  Protection of liberty and the right to pursue happiness has been the litmus test for what is good.  In the history of the United States, these are the human values that are meant to connect the present to the past.