Eric Foner Quotes

• If you are going to abolish slavery, that opens up all these other questions: what system of labor is going to replace slave labor? What system of race relations is going to replace the race relations of slavery? Who is going to have power in the post-war South? The Emancipation Proclamation doesn't answer that question, but it throws [it] open.

  Eric Foner

  War, Slave Labor, Race

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• Who owns history? Everyone and no one--which is why the study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.

  Eric Foner

  Past, Journey, Discovery

  Eric Foner (2003). “Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World”, p.14, Macmillan

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• For historians, hindsight can be a treacherous ally. Enabling us to trace the hidden patterns of past events, it beguiles us with the mirage of inevitability, the assumption that different outcomes lay beyond the limits of the possible.

  Eric Foner

  Past, Allies, Events

  Eric Foner (1988). “Reconstruction: America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877”, Harpercollins

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• A man working for wages his whole life is not really free. That is why Jefferson said, you have to own land. Southerners said, - and they weren't being hypocritical - they said slavery is the foundation of freedom because if you own slaves, you are freer yourself.

  Eric Foner

  Men, Land, Foundation

  "Life Is Getting More Difficult for Americans". Interview with Karen Andresen and Cordula Meyer, www.spiegel.de. October 30, 2008.

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• A new future requires a new past.

  Eric Foner

  Past, History, New Future

  Eric Foner (2003). “Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World”, p.83, Macmillan

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• Freedom has been privatized - it is how you dress, what your sexual orientation is, choosing your own life. That's fine. But that is not what Thomas Jefferson was talking about.

  Eric Foner

  Talking, Dresses, Fine

  "Life Is Getting More Difficult for Americans". Interview with Karen Andresen and Cordula Meyer, www.spiegel.de. October 30, 2008.

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• Lincoln sees slavery in some ways as a theft of labor. A slave is a laborer who is being denied the fruits of his labor.

  Eric Foner

  Fruit, Slavery, Way

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• Look, Mrs. McGillicuddy, it's not my fault your son jumped out a dorm room window on Christmas eve. I've written over fifty books as a Columbia professor, all right? You don't do that by holding hands with every at-risk undergraduate who says he's homesick, or he's turning gay, or the dog ate his term paper. I write about Lincoln, and freedom, and great ideas. I don't always have time for students. It's like Dean Martin used to say: if you want to talk, go to a priest. Hey -- what's the gun for?

  Eric Foner

  Dog, Book, Writing

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• Lincoln is such an iconic figure in American history. He seems to reflect so many elements of American culture that we consider essential, whether it's the self-made man, the frontier hero, the politician who tries to act in a moral way as well as in a political way, Honest Abe. His career raises these questions that are still with us, the power of the federal government vis-à-vis the states, the question of race in American life, can we be a society of equals? There are so many issues central to Lincoln's career that are still part of our society one hundred and fifty years later.

  Eric Foner

  Hero, Men, Race

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• I think here is the irony of American history. We don't have an established church. When you have an established church nobody takes religion as seriously as we do here. We have a free market in religion. The religious groups are competing with each other.

  Eric Foner

  Religious, Thinking, Church

  "Life Is Getting More Difficult for Americans". Interview with Karen Andresen and Cordula Meyer, www.spiegel.de. October 30, 2008.

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• In the Shadow of Slavery covers two and a half centuries of black life in New York City, and skillfully interweaves the categories of race and class as they affected the formation of African American identity. Leslie Harris has made a major contribution to our understanding of the black experience.

  Eric Foner

  New York, Race, Class

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• Lincoln has accepted America as a biracial society. He's talking about giving at least some black men the right to vote. In the Emancipation Proclamation he advises some blacks to labor faithfully for reasonable wages, here in the United States. He doesn't say anything about them leaving the country. He puts black men in the army. That is a whole different vision than simply saying "let's have them go out of the country." I think what's interesting is the change in Lincoln's view, but one must realize that he did adhere to this idea of colonization for many years.

  Eric Foner

  Country, Army, Men

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• There are those who view the abolitionists as just maniacs, apolitical fanatics who helped to cause the war, and Lincoln is the model of responsible statesmanship. I think that is a misconception, the idea that Lincoln knows what's possible and the abolitionists don't.

  Eric Foner

  War, Thinking, Ideas

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• Whatever Lincoln's racial views, which are not totally modern and egalitarian in many ways, he believes blacks should have this natural right to improve their condition in life and slavery denies that to them.

  Eric Foner

  Believe, Should Have, Views

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Colonization was the idea that once slavery ended African-Americans should be encouraged - or required, in some people's view - required to leave the country. It's part of an attitude toward the abolition of slavery which says America should not be a slave society, but it can never be a multiracial society. You can never have free black and white people living together.

  Eric Foner

  Country, Attitude, Black And White

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• You pick up very well-known books on Lincoln [and] you will find almost no reference to his long-term belief in colonization. Why? Because it doesn't fit the image of the Great Emancipator. It doesn't fit the retrospective view we want to have of Lincoln as the man who was the moralist in politics, who came into office committed to ending slavery and waited to sign this document.

  Eric Foner

  Book, Men, Views

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• I admire Lincoln enormously and I think what's interesting about Lincoln is how he changes, it's not that he held the same view throughout his life.

  Eric Foner

  Thinking, Views, Interesting

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• In a democratic society, as Max Weber said, what is possible is only possible because some people have demanded the impossible. The abolitionists helped to create a public discourse in which men like Lincoln become possible. That doesn't mean Lincoln is an abolitionist. It means there is a public opinion out there which is being influenced by antislavery sentiment.

  Eric Foner

  Mean, Men, People

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• Whenever you think of Lincoln as a historian, in his own mind, he becomes the Great Emancipator. This is his role in history henceforth. He was an ambitious man who wanted to make an impact on history, and this is how he did it.

  Eric Foner

  Men, Thinking, Impact

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• Lincoln was a modernizer, so to speak. He believed in economic development. As a Whig before the war he favored what we would call infrastructure spending, government appropriation for canals, railroads, river and harbor improvements, and a tariff to protect industry. He believed in this market revolution that was sweeping across Northern society. He himself benefited from it in his own life.

  Eric Foner

  War, Rivers, Government

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• I don't [even] know the number of books on Abraham Lincoln. Ten thousand, twelve thousand? I have seen various numbers. It seems like every generation is always trying to come to terms with Lincoln.

  Eric Foner

  Book, Always Trying, Numbers

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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