Civil War Quotes - Page 14

• From the days of the Founding Fathers, right to this (2008) election, how and where America fights to defend its freedom, has been the ultimate question in its politics. The one that triggers rage and sorrow; the one that asks is the price of blood too dear? Or, if it is to stay true to its convictions, does America have no coice but to put its lives on the line?

  Simon Schama

  Father, War, Fighting

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• How is this any different than the big boat argument of people when it came to African-Americans after the Civil War, decided, 'Put them on a boat and send them back where they came from?' You know, he says it in polite language, but that's what Romney's been saying, 'Get home where you came from, start all over again.'

  Chris Matthews

  War, Home, People

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• For the other end of the spectrum, the 50 to 85 percent of the world's population who are not the recipients of privilege, the world they know is almost certainly worse than any their earlier counterparts knew. It is likely they are worse off materially, despite the technological changes. In substantive as opposed to formal terms, they are more, not less, subject to arbitrary constraints, since the central mechanisms are more pervasive and more efficient. And they bear the brunt of the various kinds of psychic malaise, as well as of the destructiveness of civil wars.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  War, Psychics, Technological Change

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• It cost about 75 cents to kill a man in Ceasar's time. The price rose to about $3,000 per man during the Napoleonic wars; to $5,000 in the American Civil War; and then to $21,000 per man in World War I. Estimates for the future wars indicate that it may cost the warring countries not less than $50,000 for each man killed.

  Homer Bone

  Death, Country, War

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• In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Congress And The President, Giving, Slavery

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

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• I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that we will be the ones who will help the poor overthrow the rich, who will talk about land reform and education and health facilities for everyone, and that when the Red Cross or Amnesty International comes to count the bodies and take the testimony of women raped, that our side won't be the heavies.

  Michael Parenti

  Dream, War, Land

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• It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Gratitude, Government, Law

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.

  Walter Lippmann

  War, Army, Blood

  Walter Lippmann (2003). “Men of Destiny (Ppr)”, p.58, Transaction Publishers

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• For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Country, Jobs, War

  Benjamin Disraeli's letter to Lord Grey de Wilton, October 3, 1873.

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• The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic.

  Daniel Mendelsohn

  Jesus, War, Three

  Daniel Mendelsohn (2012). “Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture”, p.82, New York Review of Books

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• I come from a stupid family. During the civil war my great uncle fought for the west.

  Rodney Dangerfield

  Funny, Uncles, Stupid

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• The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

  Shelby Foote

  War, Hell, Crossroads

  Shelby Foote (1995). “The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863”

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• You can't have anything valuable in your house. Niggers will break in and take it all! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got niggers. The niggers have got to go. I love black people, but I hate niggers. I am tired of niggers. Tired, tired, tired.

  Chris Rock

  Hate, War, Tired

  "Wind them up and watch them go" by Kathy Sweeney, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2001.

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• If they don't close these [nuclear] reactors down, we'll have civil war in five years.

  Ralph Nader

  War, Years, Nuclear Reactors

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• Over the last 30 odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into the mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby... That's the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He's not even a liberal.

  Bill Maher

  Religious, War, Party

  "Real Time with Bill Maher".

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• Some call this civil war; others call it emergency -- I call it pure evil.

  George W. Bush

  War, Evil, Emergencies

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• Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

  Abraham Lincoln

  God, Unity, Praying

  Second Inaugural Address, delivered 4 March 1865

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• We're on the verge of civil war in Northern Ireland. Why? Because if you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left.

  Ian Paisley

  War, Democracy, Forums

  "1986: Ian Paisley's Battle Cry Condemned". "On This Day" page on BBC, news.bbc.co.uk.

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• The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, was put into effect on January 1, 1863, but news of the Proclamation and enforcement did not reach Texas until after the end of the Civil War almost two years later.

  Corrine Brown

  War, Years, Two

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• I deny the right of Congress to force a slaveholding State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a free State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt it; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than any other under a free government.

  Stephen A. Douglas

  War, Government, People

  Bob Blaisdell, Stephen A. Douglas (2012). “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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• Our agitation, you know, helps keep yours alive in the rank and file.

  Wendell Phillips

  War, Agitation, Alive

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• There is very little moral mixture in the 'Antislavery' feeling of this country. A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of slaveholders; a great part is jealousy for white labor, very little is consciousness of wrong done and the wish to right it.

  George William Curtis

  Country, War, White

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• We are not one people. We are two peoples. We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable.

  Horace Greeley

  War, Two, People

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• I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Views, Law

  Abraham Lincoln (2011). “Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches”, p.40, Penguin

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• The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Independence, Unions

  Abraham Lincoln (2011). “Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches”, p.40, Penguin

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