Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 99

Who said it 1-6-13

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Four Freedoms Speech” (State of the Union: January 6, 1941)

The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.

Source: FDR Library

Who Said It 12/19

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserve the love and thanks of man and woman.”

 

Thomas Paine, American Crisis, No., 1, published December 19, 1776 and read to Washington’s troops on December 23, 1776, before the Battle of Trenton. (Source: Library of Congress. Printed broadside version showing December 19, 1776 date.

 

The New Abolition of the “Execrable Commerce”

 

Slaughter of the Innocents

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under….” (Matthew 1: 16-New Revised Standard Version)

 

December 15 –this past Saturday—marked the 221st anniversary of ratification of the Bill of Rights.  I had planned to use the occasion to write about the history of the Bill of Rights and the general public ignorance of what these 10 Amendments are and why they were created by the Founding Generation.

That plan was cut off by the events in Connecticut on Friday, December 14 when, like millions of others, I was caught up in the maelstrom of media reports –so many of them initially mistaken—coming out of a small community not far from New York City.

In the days since, the issue of controlling America’s epidemic of gun violence has been thrust to the center of attention in a way it has not before—even in the wake of other recent shootings whose names are now well-known: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora. The list is old and way too long.

On Sunday evening, following the slaughter of the innocents, the President made that reality perfectly clear at a prayer vigil after the terrible shootings in a bucolic small town in Connecticut.  He said, “Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

As of today, it seems as though this horrific event has become what is called a ”tipping point.” Congress has begun to move itself. And the New York Times editorial page devoted its columns to the issue of Second Amendment rights and what it calls “the gun epidemic.”

I do not wish to use this space for yet another scholarly and historical debate about the origins and intent of the Second Amendment. Instead I urge people to read each of the related pieces. I especially want to encourage teachers – who have been thrust into the true front lines of this gun madness—to use this as a teaching moment, particularly with age-appropriate classes. This is a time for real “current events” in the Social Studies classroom. The following essays from the Times will provide some excellent talking points for classroom and community discussion.

•”Personal Guns and the Second Amendment”

•”In Other Countries, Laws Are Strict and Work”

•”Let’s Get M.A.D.D. About Guns” by columnist Joe Nocera

•”The Bullet’s Legacy” by columnist Frank Bruni

In thinking about this issue, I was reminded of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and the centuries of legal and political arguments over what Jefferson called “this execrable commerce” in his draft of the Declaration (deleted by Congress).

I believe that guns are our “execrable commerce.” And gun control is ultimately a moral issue, not a political one, just as the abolition of slavery was. It took far too many lives to get Abraham Lincoln to the point that he finally reached in calling for the abolition of slavery.

In the time of slavery, the voices calling for emancipation were drowned out by powerful political and economic forces. Men like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were dismissed as fanatics, with discussion of slavery even prohibited in Congress under its “gag rule.”

It is time to end America’s “gag rule” on serious discussion of rational, meaningful gun control. As William Lloyd Garrison wrote 30 years before the Civil War,

“On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation.” (The Liberator, No. 1 January 1, 1831)

Enough is enough.

 

© 2012 Kenneth C. Davis

 

Who Said It 12-10-12

 

 

President George Washington in his “Farewell Address,” originally published in September 1796 in a letter addressed to “The People of the United States” (Source: Avalon Project-Yale Law School)

George Washington died on December 14, 1799.

Who Said It 12-1-12

Abraham Lincoln  “Second Annual Message to Congress” (December 1, 1862) Source: Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....

Having announced the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, Lincoln followed with this message to Congress, or State of the Union message, a long document in which he called for compensated emancipation of slaves and the use of “colonization” to return freed slaves to Africa.

From the closing paragraph of Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress (“State of the Union”)

Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just–a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.

“In Depth” on Book TV with Kenneth C. Davis

On November 4, 2012, New York Times Bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis sat down for a comprehensive three-hour interview with C-Span’s Book TV. The interview, which included questions from callers and via e-mail, covered Davis’ career as a writer spanning more than 20 years. In the interview, he discussed his approach to writing history in such books as Don’t Know Much About® History. He also described his background, growing up in Mt. Vernon, New York, how he became writer, and his early work, including his first book, Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, which discussed the rise of the paperback publishing industry and the impact of books on American society. Davis also described the success of his “Don’t Know Much About®” series, with its emphasis on making history both accessible and entertaining while connecting the past to the present.

Watch the video here.

Who Said It 11/26

 

Lyndon B. Johnson. Address to the Joint Session of Congress (November 27, 1963) [Source Miller Center-University of Virginia]

On November 27, 1963, President Johnson addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress five days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

 

Don’t Know Much About® the Real First Pilgrims

As we cut through the myth and misconception surrounding the “first Thanksgiving,” it is easy to say that there was nothing new or novel about the October 1621 “harvest feast” celebrated in Massachusetts by the surviving Mayflower passengers. Certainly harvest festivals go back to the dawn of time. And in America, such “thanksgiving days” were surely celebrated by the Spanish in the Southwest and Englishmen in Virginia well before the Mayflower sailed.

But one group has been left out of the picture completely. And their story deserves to be part of the Thanksgiving conversation. They were French and had the good sense to settle in Florida in June instead of Massachusetts in December. They reached the future America in 1564, long before the Mayflower arrived in December 1620 carrying those “Pilgrims.” Like the storied English Separatists, these French Protestants, or Huguenots,  came to America seeking religious freedom in the midst of France’s bloody religious civil wars. But they have been overlooked by most history books. Their plight — and tragic fate– is the subject of an article I wrote for the New York Times. 

TO commemorate the arrival of the first pilgrims to America’s shores, a June date would be far more appropriate, accompanied perhaps by coq au vin and a nice Bordeaux. After all, the first European arrivals seeking religious freedom in the “New World” were French. And they beat their English counterparts by 50 years. That French settlers bested the Mayflower Pilgrims may surprise Americans raised on our foundational myth, but the record is clear.

Here you can read the rest of this Op-Ed, A French Connection which first appeared in the New York Times on November 25, 2008.

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New York Times Bestseller America’s Hidden History

The complete story of the French Huguenots who settled Fort Caroline in Florida is told in the first chapter of America’s Hidden History.

You can also learn more about the “first Pilgrims” at the Fort Caroline and Fort Matanzas National Park Service sites.

Don’t Know Much About Minute: More Pilgrims 101

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When Abraham Lincoln signed a Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 calling for a day of gratitude on the last Thursday in November, it began an unbroken string of presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations. In 1941, the FOURTH Thursday in November was set as a national holiday by Congress and signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In my previous video and quiz about Thanksgiving, I told you that there were no black hats with buckles, half of the “pilgrims” weren’t Pilgrims and that the first Thanksgiving was really  in October. Here are a few more pieces of the picture.

And here is a link to a story I wrote for the New York Times about America’s real first Pilgrims, a group of French settlers in Florida who arrived 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.

A day of “Thanksgiving” was officially proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. It was the beginning of an unbroken string of Thanksgiving proclamation by American presidents. The last Thursday in November became an official national holiday in 1941, signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

THE PLIMOTH PLANTATION historical site also offers a good overview of the Pilgrim story:

Thanksgiving Pop Quiz- A Videoblog

With Thanksgiving around the corner, cutouts of Pilgrims in black clothes and clunky shoes are sprouting all over the place. You may know that the Pilgrims sailed aboard the Mayflower and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. But did you know their first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three whole days? What else do you know about these early settlers of America? Don’t be a turkey. Try this True-False quiz.

True or False? (Answers below)

1. Pilgrims always wore stiff black clothes and shoes with silver buckles.

2. The Pilgrims came to America in search of religious freedom.

3. Everyone on the Mayflower was a Pilgrim.

4. The Pilgrims were saved from starvation by a native American friend named Squanto.

5. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America.

Read more about the Mayflower and its passengers with your children in Don’t Know Much About the Pilgrims.

Don’t Know Much About® the Pilgrims

And read about America’s real “first Pilgrims”–French Huguenots who landed in Florida more than fifty years before the Mayflower sailed– in America’s Hidden History

The site of Plimouth Plantation is definitely worth a visit.

 

Don’t Know Much About@ History (2011 Revised and Updated Edition)

Answers

1. False. Pilgrims wore blue, green, purple and brownish clothing for everyday. Those who had good black clothes saved them for the Sabbath. No Pilgrims had buckles– artists made that up later!

2. True. The Pilgrims were a group of radical Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England. After 11 years of “exile” in Holland, they decided to come to America.

3. False. Only about half of the 102 people on the Mayflower were what William Bradford later called “Pilgrims.” The others, called “Strangers” just wanted to come to the New World.

4. True. Squanto, or Tisquantum, helped teach the Pilgrims to hunt, farm and fish. He learned English after being taken as a slave aboard an English ship.

5. False. The Indians had been having similar harvest feasts for years. So did the English settlers in Virginia and Spanish settlers in the southwest before the Pilgrims even got to America. And the Mayflower Pilgrims weren’t even America’s “first Pilgrims.” That honor goes to French Huguenots who settled in Florida more than 50 years before the Mayflower sailed.