All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies ...is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America owes most of its social prejudices to the exaggerated religious opinions of the different sects which were so instrumental... in establishing the colonies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I don't think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of indepen...dence is the key. It really is like colonialism. The colonies suddenly decide that they can and should exist with their own personality and should detach from the control of the mothercountry. At first the colony is perceived as being treacherous. It's a betrayal. Ultimately, it can be seen as the separation of a partner that could be very valuable as an equal rather than as something you dominate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The War of the Roses in England and the Civil War in America were both intestinal conflicts arising out of similar ideas. In the f...irst the clash was between feudalism and the new economic order; in the second, between an agricultural society and a new industrial one. Both led to similar ends; the first to the founding of the English nation, and the second to the founding of the American. Both were strangely interlinked; for it was men of the old military and not of the new economic mind--men, such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh--who founded the English colonies in America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is an immense misfortune to the empire to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. We are told and every thing proves ...it true that he is the bitterest enemy we have.... To undo his empire he has but one truth more to learn, that after colonies have drawn the sword there is but one step more they can take.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the m...ere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that ...we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So that's our new flag. The thing we've been fighting for--thirteen stripes for the colonies and thirteen stars in a circle for th...e union.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »