The freedom that 1880 Americans celebrated was a society in which there was which there was no income taxation, no mandatory charity, no government management or regulation of economic activity, no immigration controls, no systems of public (i.e., government) schooling, no Federal Reserve System, no paper money, no punishment for drug offenses, and no Pentagon, CIA, or NSA, no wars in faraway lands, no secret surveillance, no torture, no assassination, and no indefinite detention.

The "freedom" that Americans today celebrate is one in which there is Social Security, Medicare, education grants, farm subsidies, and other mandatory-charity programs, government management and regulation of economic activity, immigration controls, public (i.e., government) schooling, the Federal Reserve, paper money, punishment for possessing, distributing, or ingesting unapproved substances, a massive military establishment consisting of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, and forever wars, secret surveillance, torture,  assassination, and indefinite detention.

Thing about that: Two opposite systems and yet people under both systems celebrating their freedom. Something is clearly not right with this picture.