And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t’ other half for the freedom to speak.

These lines come from James Russell Lowell’s long political poem “The Present Crisis,” written in response to the national turmoil surrounding the Mexican–American War and the intensifying conflict over slavery in the United States. Lowell, a prominent New England poet and editor associated with antislavery reform, uses the poem to urge moral courage at a moment when public opinion and party loyalty tempted many to silence or compromise. The passage praises the rare figure who accepts reputational loss in order to think independently and then to speak openly—an ideal Lowell frames as a civic and ethical duty during a period of heated polarization and pressure to conform.

Lowell celebrates intellectual and moral independence as a two-step act: first, the “freedom to think” against prevailing fashion, and second, the “freedom to speak” after one has reached a conclusion. The “half his present repute” image suggests that dissent costs social standing; speaking out can cost what remains. By honoring someone who will risk reputation regardless of whether the cause is judged “strong or weak,” Lowell emphasizes integrity over popularity and conscience over consensus. In the poem’s larger argument, such courage is what prevents a society from drifting into injustice through comfortable silence and what makes reform possible when institutions fail.