In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his f...air weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
By the way--about Bolshevism: one has to remember that all that is published in the press is propaganda, that the Bolsheviki are t...he moderate social-revolutionaries, a political party, and the Soviets are a system of government based on the idea of "pure democracy" (Mso called in the textbooks on gov't) that every man shall take direct part in the government of the country--which is arrived at by industrial representation through the heirarchy of soviets, and that much the same system would be in vogue in America--(geographical instead of industrial units) if Hamilton and the rest had taken the New England town-meeting as the unit of government instead of importing Montesquieu's ideas. It's silly to idealize things in Russia, but it is criminal to condemn them unheard.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What cannot stand must fall; and the measure of our sincerity and therefore of the respect of men, is the amount of health and wea...lth we will hazard in the defence of our right. An old farmer, my neighbor across the fence, when I ask him if he is not going to town-meeting, says: "No, 't is no use balloting, for it will not stay; but what you do with the gun will stay so."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy ...of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject ...which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Anglo-American can indeed cut down, and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and vote for Buchanan on its ...ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is the consequence of this institution that not a school- house, a public pew, a bridge, a pound, a mill-dam, hath been set up,... or pulled down, or altered, or bought, or sold, without the whole population of this town having a voice in the affair. A general contentment is the result. And the people truly feel that they are lords of the soil. In every winding road, in every stone fence, in the smokes of the poor-house chimney, in the clock on the church, they read their own power, and consider, at leisure, the wisdom and error of their judgments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thought a lot about our nation and what I should do as president. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two proble...ms of our country--energy and malaise.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Hey, you dress up our town very nicely. You don't look out the Chamber of Commerce is going to list you in their publicity with th...e local attractions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberanc...e of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »