“Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for means of habitation being of our constitutions, were it fully manured and inhabited by industrious people.” — Captain John Smith. Tomlins, Christopher L. Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.
“Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the fast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.” — William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth. Hacker, Jeffrey H. Colonial Roots: Settlement to 1783. London: Routledge, 2015. Internet resource.
“May not the knowledge . . . be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, . . . and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief!” — Benjamin Franklin on lightning rods. Block, Seymour S. Benjamin Franklin, Genius of Kites, Flights and Voting Rights. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2004. Internet resource.
“On that night, the foundation of American Independence was laid. Not the Battle of Lexington or Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important events in American history than the battle of King Street on the 5th of March, 1770.” — John Adams. Adams, Charles F, and John Adams. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Volume 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Internet resource.
“No more shall my teapot so generous be / In filling the cups with this pernicious tea, / For I’ll fill it with water and drink out the same, / Before I’ll lose LIBERTY that dearest name.” Unger, Harlow G. American Tempest: How the Boston Tea Party Sparked a Revolution. New York: Da Capo, 2012. Print.
“I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in one month with you, at home, than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be Seven times Seven years.” — George Washington to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775. “From George Washington to Martha Washington, 18 June 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0003.
“The pictures, busts, and prints, (of which copies upon copies are spread every where) have made your father’s face as well known as that of the moon.” — Benjamin Franklin to his daughter, Sarah Bache, June 3, 1779. “From Benjamin Franklin to Sarah Bache, 3 June 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-29-02-0496.
“You have often heard him compared to Cincinnatus. The comparison is doubtless just. The celebrated General is nothing more at present than a good farmer, constantly occupied in the care of his farm and the improvement of cultivation.” — Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, 1788. Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: [the Early American Republic, 1788-1800]. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995. Print.
“I wish most sincerely there was not a Slave in the province.” — Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 22, 1774. “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 22 September 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0107.
“His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States . . . to be free sovereign & Independent States” — Treaty of Paris, Article 1, 1783. “Definitive Peace Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, [3 September 1783],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-15-02-0114.
“I wish to see all unjust and all unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may soon come when all our inhabitants of every colour and denomination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberty.” — John Jay to Benjamin Rush, March 24, 1785. Jay, John. The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay: 1781-1782. New York: Franklin, 1970. Print.
“The adventure Lewis had planned was dangerous. Lewis wrote to his old friend, Clark, and invited him to join the expedition: “there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself.” Clark answered Lewis’ letter, “My friend, I join you with hand and heart.” Bakeless, John. Lewis and Clark: Partners in Discovery. Newburyport: Dover Publications, 2012. Internet resource.
“If Lafayette has kissed me,” declared a young woman, “depend upon it, I would never have washed my face again as long as I lived!” Quincy, Josiah. Figures of the Past, from the Leaves of Old Journals. (fourth Edition.). pp. viii. 404. Boston [Mass., 1883]. Print.
“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford in Harriet, The Moses of Her People 1886. Bradford, Sarah H. Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People. Place of publication not identified: SMK Books, 2018. Print.
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” — Frederick Douglass, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston, 1860. Douglass, Frederick, John R. McKivigan, and Heather L. Kaufman. In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty’s Champion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. Print.
“The evils of slavery . . . is not the half that could be told, of the unspeakable whole.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe, Preface to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe, Harriet B, and John Howels. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 2019. Internet resource.
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free” — Proclamation, January 1, 1863. Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863; Presidential Proclamations, 1791-1991; Record Group 11; General Records of the United States Government; National Archives Building, Washington, D.C. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/299998
“It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it.” Woodrow Wilson — Message to Congress, April 2, 1917. Woodrow Wilson, War Messages, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. Senate Doc. No. 5, Serial No. 7264, Washington, D.C., 1917; pp. 3-8, passim. https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Wilson’s_War_Message_to_Congress
“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. . . . women as well as men.” — Susan B. Anthony. Anthony, Susan B, and Carrie C. Catt. An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony on the Charge of Illegal Voting at the Presidential Election in Nov., 1872, and on the Trial of Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. Marsh and William B. Hall, the Inspectors of Elections by Whom Her Vote Was Received. Rochester: Daily Democrat and Chronicle Book Print, 1874. Print.
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent. . . . in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” — Winston Churchill, March 5, 1946. “Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech.” Westminster College, https://www.wcmo.edu/about/history/iron-curtain-speech.html. Accessed 3 Feb. 2021.