> such as Liberia from 1860 to 1990, a famously free country though surrounded by authoritarian territories. Liberia wasn't particularly free as most of us her

> such as Liberia from 1860 to 1990, a famously free country though surrounded by authoritarian territories. Liberia wasn't particularly free as most of us here might understand the term. While the freed slaves’ constitution was modeled on the US Constitution, civil and political rights applied only to the freed slaves who came over from North America and their descendants, while Liberia’s indigenous population was neglected at the best of times, oppressed at the worst. (And even among the freed slaves’ descendants, those connected with Monrovia’s Masonic Lodge formed a political elite that others could never hope to enter). To a considerable degree, the political strife of the late 20th-century was due to rage at this skewed system of government.