Empire of Liberty Quotes

“Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“The Civil War was the climax of a tragedy that was preordained from the time of the Revolution. Only with the elimination of slavery could this nation that Jefferson had called “the world’s best hope” for democracy even begin to fulfill its great promise.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Americans became so thoroughly democratic that much of the period's political activity, beginning with the Constitution, was diverted to finding means and devices to tame that democracy.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“By contrast, said Jefferson, the Southerners were “fiery, voluptuary, indolent, unsteady, independent, zealous for their own liberties but trampling on those of others, generous, candid, without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“These multiplying societies treated the sick, aided the industrious poor, housed orphans, fed imprisoned debtors, built huts for shipwrecked sailors, and, in the case of the Massachusetts Humane Society, even attempted to resuscitate those suffering from “suspended animation,” that is, those such as drowning victims who appeared to be dead but actually were not. The fear of being buried alive was a serious concern at this time. Many, like Washington on his deathbed, asked that their bodies not be immediately interred in case they might be suffering from suspended animation.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“These incidents only foreshadowed much more extensive and violent student protests. In 1799 University of North Carolina students beat the president, stoned two professors, and threatened others with injury. In 1800 conflicts over discipline broke out at Harvard, Brown, William and Mary, and Princeton. In 1802 the rioting became even more serious. Williams College was under siege for two weeks. According to a tutor, Yale was in a state of “wars and rumors of wars.” After months of student rioting, Princeton’s Nassau Hall was mysteriously gutted by fire; the students, including William Cooper’s eldest son, were blamed for setting it a flame. As with other sorts of rioting, alcohol was often present. One student informed the president of Dartmouth that “the least quantity he could put up with . . . was from two to three pints daily.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In the decades following the Revolution America changed so much and so rapidly that Americans not only became used to change but came to expect it and prize it.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“All took for granted that a society could not long remain republican if a tiny minority controlled most of the wealth and the bulk of the population remained dependent servants or poor landless laborers. Equality was related to independence”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Americans knew only too well that republics were very delicate polities that required a special kind of society—a society of equal and virtuous citizens. By throwing off monarchy and becoming republics, declared South Carolina physician and historian David Ramsay, Americans had “changed from subjects to citizens,” and “the difference is immense.” “Subjects,” he said, “look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others.”3 Republics demanded far more morally from their citizens than monarchies did of their subjects. In monarchies each man’s desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by fear or force, by patronage or honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately, from their citizens’ willingness to take up arms to defend their country and to sacrifice their private desires for the sake of the public good—from their “disinterestedness,” which was a popular synonym for virtue. This reliance on the moral virtue of their citizens, on their capacity for self-sacrifice and impartiality of judgment, was what made republican governments historically so fragile.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“the mind of the child is like soft wax, which will take the least stamp you put on it, so let it be your care, who teach, to make the stamp good, that the wax be not hurt.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“a man whose ignorance and perverseness are only surpassed by his pertinacity and conceit.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Unlike most of the other Revolutionary leaders, who were the first in their families to attend college, Burr was the son of a president of Princeton and the grandson of another Princeton president—Jonathan Edwards, the most famous theologian in eighteenth-century America—and, said Adams, he “was connected by blood with many respectable families in New England.”6 This presumption that he was already an aristocrat by blood separated Burr from most of the other leaders of the Revolutionary generation. He always had an air of superiority about him, and he always considered himself to be more of a gentleman than other men.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“the country’s designation remained “the United States of America,” with its people appropriating the name that belonged to all the peoples of the New World—even though the term “Americans” actually had begun as a pejorative label the metropolitan English had applied to their inferior and far-removed colonists.101”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Madison and other supporters of the Consitution--the Federalists as they called themselves--hoped that an expanded national sphere of operation would prevent the clashing interests of the society from combining to create tyrannical majorities in the new national government.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Foreigners thought the Americans’ eating habits were atrocious, their food execrable, and their coffee detestable. Americans tended to eat fast, often sharing a common bowl or cup, to bolt their food in silence, and to use only their knives in eating. Everywhere travelers complained about “the violation of decorum, the want of etiquette, the rusticity of manners in this generation.”36”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“After much jousting between the Congress and the president over the appointment of more officers, Madison by the end of the year had issued commissions to over eleven hundred individuals, 15 percent of whom immediately declined them, followed by an additional 8 percent who resigned after several months of service.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina was only one of many Republicans who in the early months of 1812 voted against all attempts to arm and prepare the navy, who opposed all efforts to beef up the War Department, who rejected all tax increases, and yet who in June 1812 voted for the war.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In 1812 the U.S. Army consisted of fewer than seven thousand regular troops.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Between 1803 and 1812 Britain and France and their allies seized nearly fifteen hundred American ships, with Britain taking 917 to France’s 558.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Jefferson’s extraordinary efforts to defend the rights of neutrals to trade freely drove the country into a deep depression and severely damaged his presidency. He ended up violating much of what he and his party stood for.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION of 1787 was designed in part to solve the problems created by the presence in the state legislatures of these middling men. In addition to correcting the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution was intended to restrain the excesses of democracy and protect minority rights from overbearing majorities in the state legislatures. But”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Showing oneself eager for office was a sign of being unworthy of it, for the office-seeker probably had selfish views rather than the public good in mind.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“The Baptists expanded from 94 congregations in 1760 to 858 in 1790 to become the single largest religious denomination in America. The Methodists had no adherents at all in 1760, but by 1790 they had created over seven hundred congregations—despite the fact that the great founder of English Methodism, John Wesley, had publicly opposed the American Revolution.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“The Court had a rule that it would indulge in wine-drinking only if it were raining. Marshall would look out the window on a sunny day and decide that wine-drinking was permissible since “our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining somewhere.”11”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Unlike in the Northern states, the only elected officials in Virginia were federal congressmen and state legislators; all the rest were either selected by the legislature or appointed by the governor or the county courts, which were self-perpetuating oligarchies that dominated local government. Thus popular democratic politics in Virginia and elsewhere in the South was severely limited, especially in contrast to the states of the North, where nearly all state and local offices had become elective and the turbulence of politics and the turnover of offices were much greater.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“By contrast with this extensive Republican use of the press, the Federalists did little. Presuming that they had a natural right to rule, they had no need to stir up public opinion, which was what demagogues did in exploiting the people’s ignorance and innocence.37 Federalist editors and printers of newspapers like John Fenno and his Gazette of the United States did exist, but most of these supporters of the national government were conservative in temperament; they tended to agree with the Federalist gentry that artisan-printers had no business organizing political parties or engaging in electioneering.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Between 1798 and 1808 American colleges were racked by mounting incidents of student defiance and outright rebellion—on a scale never seen before or since in American history.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“It was the family, John Adams had said in 1778, that was the “foundation of national morality.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Do not give to persons able to work for a living,” declared a critic of the traditional paternalistic charity in 1807. “Do not support widows who refuse to put out their children. Do not let the means of support be made easier to one who does not work than to those who do.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815