Edward J. Larson > Quotes

“Clarence Darrow," the New York Times proclaimed in its lead story, "bearded the lion of Fundamentalism today, faced William Jennings Bryan and a court room filled with believers of the literal word of the Bible and with a hunch of his shoulders and a thumb in his suspenders defied every belief they hold sacred.”
― Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

“As a fellow member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Washington had known Jefferson since 1768, and, at age nineteen, James Monroe had crossed the Delaware River with Washington on that already legendary Christmas night in 1776 for the battles that revived the patriot cause.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Civil liberty,” explained Federalist leader John Jay, who then served as New York’s governor, “consists not in a right to every man to do just as he pleases, but it consists in an equal right…to do…whatever the equal and constitutional laws of the country admit to be consistent with the public good.”
― Edward J. Larson, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign

“Providence, too, Washington believed, played a part, and assured a bright future for the United States.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“in government became the principal supporters of the”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Religion, too, he warned, especially when “kindled into enthusiasm,” is a “force like that of other passions” and “may become a motive to oppression.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Every art that could inflame the passions and touch the interests of men has been essayed,” Washington complained in early April 1788. “The ignorant have been told, that should the proposed Government obtain, their land would be taken from them and their property disposed of, and all ranks are informed that the prohibition of the Navigation of the Mississippi (their favorite object) will be a certain consequence of the adoption of the Constitution.”2 Their forte, Washington soon added about antifederalists, “seems to lie in misrepresentation . . . rather than to convince the understanding by some arguments or fair and impartial statements.”3 He dismissed most of them as “contemptible characters” of “little importance.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“BY ALL ACCOUNTS, HOWEVER, Washington did not want the presidency.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Washington’s eyesight and hearing were also failing, and his teeth posed persistent and painful problems.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Franklin, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”18”
― Edward J. Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

“Back at his beloved Mount Vernon in 1797, Washington threw himself into farming and even became a whiskey distiller. No product ever netted him a larger return on his investment than this potent, rye-based intoxicant that he sold straight from the still. His distillery became the largest in the United States by 1799.”
― Edward J. Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

“Washington rightly called this “a new phenomenon in the political & moral world; and an astonishing victory gained by enlightened reason over brutal force.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“By the end of 1787, with final results having reached Mount Vernon from three states and favorable reports from many others, Washington exuded optimism about the Constitution. “New England (with the exception of Rhode Island, which seems itself, politically speaking, to be an exception from all that is good) it is believed will chearfully and fully accept it,” Washington wrote to Lafayette in early January.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“No law can shackle human thought,”
― Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

“As recently as 1785, he had complained to Knox that “heavy, & painful oppressions in the head, and other disagreeable sensations, often trouble me.”56”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Indeed, by the 1780s, his teeth had become so bad that he sought treatment from the itinerant French dentist Jean Pierre Le Moyer, first at army headquarters in Newburgh then on several occasions at Mount Vernon. Le Moyer specialized in the risky procedure of tooth transplants, which involved extracting a diseased tooth from a patient and replacing it with a healthy tooth obtained from a donor. Washington resorted to this procedure during the 1780s, with the healthy teeth coming from his slaves, who received thirteen shillings per tooth, or about one-third of what Le Moyer typically paid on the free market.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“We exhibit at present the novel & astonishing Spectacle of a whole People deliberating calmly on what form of government will be most conductive to their happiness; and deciding with an unexpected degree of unanimity in favor of a system which they conceive calculated to answer the purpose.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“By 1787, four years since the United States secured its independence, Washington had come to believe that the country faced as grave a threat from internal forces of disunion in the mid-1780s as it had from external ones of tyranny in the mid-1770s, when he accepted leadership of the patriot army at the outset of the Revolutionary War.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Washington resorted to this procedure during the 1780s, with the healthy teeth coming from his slaves, who received thirteen shillings per tooth, or about one-third of what Le Moyer typically paid on the free market.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise,”
― Edward J. Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

“For Washington, at age fifty-five, health was an ongoing issue and one reason he repeatedly gave for his retirement from public life. He had suffered from dysentery, pleurisy, quinsy, severe headaches, fevers, and a mild case of smallpox in the past, and the quinsy and headaches periodically returned.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Washington had dreamed of Potomac River navigation long before independence made it a patriotic cause. Not only could such a waterway improve access to his frontier holdings, it would channel western trade through the mouth of the Potomac near his Mount Vernon plantation. Both would increase his wealth.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“In republican Government the majority however composed, ultimately give the law,” he wrote in his memorandum and implied in his letters, and “what is to restrain them from unjust violations of the rights and interests of the minority, or of individuals?”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“In its next issue, the Albany Journal featured a song that began: Behold Columbia’s empire rise, On freedom’s solid base to stand; Supported by propitious skies, And seal’d by her deliverer’s hand.118 In case any reader missed its meaning, newspapers reprinting this song added a footnote stating that the last line referred to Washington’s signature on the Constitution.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Oberlin”
― Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

“Their decision to keep above the fray made sense. Franklin and Washington were thin-skinned and recoiled from ad hominem attacks. Neither was particularly adept at defending a proposal in a contentious up-or-down vote, especially a proposition they helped to craft. Franklin might begin fiddling with the text and Washington might lose his temper.”
― Edward J. Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

“THE MEMBERS DEBATED the executive at length three separate times during the Convention: early June, mid-July, and early September.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Madison’s examples suggested a particular concern with factions united by economic or religious passions. Through state-issued paper money, he observed, debtor factions had devalued property rights.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“The people’s delegates had ratified Washington as much as they had ratified a constitution.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789

“Washington clearly enjoyed himself in Annapolis. He danced every dance at the governor’s ball, accommodating all the ladies who lined up for the privilege of getting a touch of him. After the thirteen formal toasts at Congress’s banquet, he added a concluding one of his own: “Competent Powers to Congress for general purposes.”59 It had become his mantra. As much as he wished to get home to Virginia, he was also at home here in the swirl of continental politics.”
― Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789