American Revolution

“ Do so and you stop the progress of humanity. The American Revolution was blood-stained. It gave us freedom. The Civil War was blood-stained. It freed this nation of the curse of slavery and sealed the Union for all time. ”

“ May the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, who has raised you to Independence, and given you a place among the nations of the earth, make the American Revolution an Era in the history of the world, remarkable for the progressive increase of human happiness! ”

“ In respect to the American revolution itself, it is notorious, that it was brought about against the wishes and resistance of a formidable minority of the people; and that the declaration of independence never had the universal assent of all the inhabitants of the country. So, that this great and glorious change in the organization of our government owes its whole authority to the efforts of a triumphant majority. ”

“ The American Revolution is undoubtedly the most interesting event in the pages of modern history. Changes equally great and convulsions equally violent have often taken place in the Old World; and the records of former times inform us of many instances of oppression, which, urged beyond endurance, called forth the spirit of successful resistance. ”

“ The American Revolution grew out of the souls of the people and was an inevitable result of a living affection for freedom, which set in motion harmonious effort as certainly as the beating of the heart sends warmth and color through the system. ”

“ Nothing is more delightful to the human mind than to ascend
from important results to their primitive causes; and surely the
Reformation alone has produced as extensive and important
effects as the American Revolution: yet how few understand
the springs which set that tremendous machine in motion.
America is now vigorous and majestic ”

“ Who and what has given rise to the assuming pride of the people, as it is called in Europe, in every part of which they have been so thoroughly abased? The American revolution. The precepts, the reasonings, and example of the United States of America, disseminated by the press through every part of the world, have convinced the understanding, and have touched the heart. ”

“ Patriots like Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and so many others had already achieved immortality through their victory in the Revolution. But soon after, these extraordinary leaders faced another task unlike any other—the task of building a brand new nation. So they designed a system of government, rooted in common laws, history, and traditions that would secure the liberty, equality, and rights they had fought for and fought to defend in the American Revolution. ”

“ The American Revolution, like most other revolutions, was the work of an energetic minority who succeeded in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority to courses for which they had little love; leading them, step by step, to a position from which it was impossible to recede. ”

“ Thus on the eve of one of the most remarkable revolutions recorded in the pages of history, a revolution which Great Britain precipitated by her indiscretion and which the hardiest sons of America viewed in the beginning of opposition as a work reserved for the enterprising hand of posterity, few on either side comprehended the magnitude of the contest, and fewer still had the courage to name the independence of the American colonies as the ultimatum of their designs. ”

“ The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated. ”

“ This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
By what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other, was begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity. ”

“ These observations are not confined to any particular nation or character. The historians of Britain and the philosophers and poets of France, Germany, and England are perhaps equally culpable; and it is to be regretted that America has not preserved a national character of her own, free from any symptoms of pernicious deviation from the purest principles on morals, religion, and civil liberty. She has been conducted through a revolution that will be ever memorable, both for its origin, its success, and the new prospects it has opened both at home and abroad. ”

“ The American revolution broke out, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, which had been nurtured in the townships and municipalities, took possession of the State: every class was enlisted in its cause; battles were fought, and victories obtained for it, until it became the law of laws. ”

“ But above all, what this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way to a new American revolution--a peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the people--in which government at all levels was refreshed and renewed and made truly responsive. This can be a revolution as profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first revolution almost 200 years ago--and it can mean that just 5 years from now America will enter its third century as a young nation new in spirit, with all the vigor and the freshness with which it began its first century. ”

“ But the hour is coming when the strongest will not be strong enough. A harder task will the new revolution of the nineteenth century be than was the revolution of the eighteenth century. I think the American Revolution bought its glory cheap. ”

“ The consequences of this revolution have not been confined to one quarter of the globe, but the dissemination of more liberal principles in government, and more honorable opinions of the rights of man, and the melioration of his condition have been spread over a considerable part of the world. ”

“ The transformations through which the United States is passing in our own day are so profound, so far-reaching, that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that we are witnessing the birth of a new nation in America. The revolution in the social and economic structure of this country during the past two decades is comparable to what occurred when independence was declared and the constitution was formed, or to the changes wrought by the era which began half a century ago, the era of Civil War and Reconstruction. ”

“ They have struggled with astonishing success for the rights of mankind and have emancipated themselves from the shackles of foreign power. America has indeed obtained incalculable advantages by the Revolution; but in the innumerable list of evils attendant on a state of war, she, as well as Great Britain, has lost her thousands of brave soldiers, veteran officers, hardy seamen, and meritorious citizens, that perished in the field or in captivity, in prison ships, and in the wilderness, since the beginning of the conflict. ”

“ The political philosophy of the American Revolution has long been confused with that of the French Revolution. As matter of fact, they stand at opposite poles. Our philosophy was religious, the French non-religious. ”

“ The genius of revolution presided at the birth of the American Republic, whose first breath was drawn amid the economic, social and political turmoil of the eighteenth century. The voyaging and discovering of the three preceding centuries had destroyed European isolation and laid the foundation for a new world order of society. The Industrial Revolution was convulsing England and threatening to destroy the Feudal State. Western civilization, in the birthpangs of social revolution, produced first the American and then the French Republic. ”

“ They thought that after America had encountered the power, an obtained a release from foreign bondage and had recently overcome domestic difficulties and discontents and even quieted the spirit of insurrection in their own states; that the republic system for which had had fought should not be hazarded by vesting any man or body of men with powers that might militate with the principles which had been cherished with fond enthusiasm by a large majority of the inhabitants throughout the union. ”

“ I call it a Revolution, for it is a rebellion only on their side; it is a Revolution for the American people. [Applause.] This is the true character of the great struggle for the preservation of our nationality, a struggle which was initiated, not when the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter, but when the slave aristocracy uttered the first threat of disunion; which arrived at its crisis when the slave aristocracy failed in its attempt to obtain complete control of our National Government, and struck the blow against the life of the nation ”

“ It is also illustrated by the three revolutions which secured liberty and equality for the world—namely the English revolutionary period of the seventeenth century, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. England barely escaped a disruption of its social system; America was never in any such danger ”

“ Yet it was to be regretted that there soon appeared a class of men, who, though taken from the bar, the shop, or the more simple occupations of life, to command armies and to negotiate with foreign nation, had imbibed ideas of distinguished rank and ostentatious titles, incompatible with republican principles, and totally repugnant to the views of the zealous advocates of American freedom. ”

“ This was not sufficient to dissipate the apprehensions of gentlemen who had been uniform and upright in their intentions and immovably fixed in the principles of the Revolution, and had never turned their eyes from the point in pursuit, until the independence of America was acknowledged by the principal monarchs in Europe. ”

“ The American revolution, in exploding that opinion, subverted its consequences. The discovery of limitations upon the power of government then made, was improved to great extent in the establishment of the general government, and demonstrates, that the two modes for preserving a free government, are distinct and incompatible. ”

“ They sailed buoyantly, prosperously and joyfully on the flood tide of domestic felicity until the angry elements of an oppressed people were concentrated by British oppression and raised the rough storm of the Revolution. ”

“ To future generations the period in American history, of most absorbing interest and profound inquiry, will be that embracing the incipiency, progress, and termination of the revolution which had its most pronounced phase in the memorable war of 1861. Historians rarely concur in their estimates of the limits of a revolution, and usually we find quite as much divergence in their views of the scope of its operations, as in their speculations as to its origin and causes, and their statements of its incidents and results. ”