Einigkeit Recht Freiheit

I pass these words written on the outside of the Niedersächsischer Landtag (Lower Saxony State Parliament) every other day, since the building is next door.

Einigkeit Recht Freiheit

Niedersächsischer Landtag

I keep thinking about what they say about national character and how they compare with the French liberté, égalité, fraternité. I think about the order, whether unity should come before rights and freedom, and I ponder what the equivalent in America should be and what influence it might have if we read these words every day instead of ads on billboards. 

The words come from a poem written in 1841 by Hoffman from Fallersleben, which he set to a Haydn tune. From Wikipedia: "In the third stanza, with a call for 'Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit' (unity and justice and freedom), Hoffmann expressed his desire for a united and free Germany where the rule of law, not monarchical arbitrariness, would prevail."