America's Forgotten History, Part One Quotes

“In the 20th century, it became more and more the norm for judges to incorrectly instruct juries that they must consider only the facts of the case and whether the defendant was guilty of breaking a law – not judge the law itself. Still, Jury Nullification survived, barely, much diminished, in prohibition cases, anti-Vietnam War cases, civil rights cases (Martin Luther King, for example, quoted St. Augustine in saying an unjust law is no law at all), and drug cases. Only now is there a small but growing movement to revive public knowledge of this essential right.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“So exalted was the idea of hegemony over self that every gentleman fell short. But the ideal itself was pursued for many generations. At its best it created a true nobility of character in Virginia gentlemen such as George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and George Marshall. The popular images of these men are not historical myths. The more one learns of them, the greater one’s respect becomes. Their character was the product of a cultural idea.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“But fiat money is paper backed by no positive value, only the negative value of government threat: accept it or else. Fiat money is the leading cause of both inflation and the boom-and-bust cycles commonly attributed to the free market. Fiat money is the modern key to government power, including the ultimate power of making war. The American debate for most of its history has been about government power so fiat money, until acceptance of power was finally achieved, was always an important political issue, an important part of America’s forgotten history.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Englishmen starved, you see, in both Virginia and Massachusetts precisely because both colonies started off as communalistic experiments. When all drew equally from the communal pot, no matter how much or how little they worked, no one wanted to work and the pot remained empty.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“The common understanding and common language of the Enlightenment political philosophers who established the American system was this: juries were to judge both law and fact.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“One of the maybe three most powerful legislative debaters and orators in the history of America, Patrick Henry, was defeated by Madison’s scholarship and quiet erudition at the Virginia ratifying convention.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall, all big men, and strong in every sense, deferred to him.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“In 1791, a large piece of New York became Vermont. In 1792, western Virginia became Kentucky. In 1796, western North Carolina broke away to form the state of Franklin, which became Tennessee.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“By the end of the war, Washington’s army was 25% black, the most integrated army America would see until the 20th century.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Non-aggression against non-aggressors.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Grover Cleveland, the great small-government, low-tax, free trade, gold standard, anti-imperial constitutionalist, was the last true Democrat before the Jeffersonian foundations of the party collapsed at the Democratic convention of 1896.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Puritans and Cavaliers each brought their own customs. In England, Puritans baked while Cavaliers fried, as their descendents in both England and America still tend to do today.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“And there is the ‘h’ problem. Some may not like the very first sentence of the book, in which I deny I am a historian. An historian is another relic, this one from a time when the dialect of the rule-makers did not pronounce the ‘h’ in history. I do pronounce ‘h,’ as do most who will likely be reading this. For us, ‘an’ is awkward before ‘history’ because it contradicts the natural rules of English pronunciation.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“If there is a need and people are free, the market will generally find a way. Without much notice, hundreds of private companies started building turnpikes in early America. By the end of the Madison administration, New England and Pennsylvania each had several thousand miles of privately built roads. New York alone would soon top 4,000 miles.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Militias divert power from the center to the people. The people are always less inclined to do certain things that governments are more inclined to do, like invading other countries or establishing permanent bases in other countries.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Notice the word “additional.” Madison is saying here that the right to secession is an additional part of his intricate system of checks and balances.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“The Constitution would remain a godless document written by and for people with a deep reverence for God, a paradox not easily grasped in our post-enlightenment age. “In God we trust” would not be added to currency or “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance until long after the founding generation.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“The great explanation of how a disordered, unregulated system with no central control could order and regulate itself with such efficiency and precision that it would far surpass all other systems had not yet been made. That explanation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, would not come until the seminal year of 1776.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“a large, centralized, activist government, no matter what its brave words and noble intentions, leads always to fewer freedoms, more wars, and a less human world in which to raise our children.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“power not tightly chained would always seek to expand.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam, In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream: ‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation; Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation! Then conquer we must when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: In God is our trust!” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Interpreters, when challenged on their manipulations, tell us the Constitution was written for a different and simpler time. Actually, the genius of the Constitution is that it was not. It was not written for a time and place but for a species of being. It is not a political document but a psychological one. It will remain relevant so long as humans remain human, so long as people are driven by the desire for power.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“However, after several false starts and with the lessons of history fading, America, too, would finally create a permanent central bank, in 1914. For political reasons it could not be called that so it was named the Federal Reserve. Proving the wisdom of the founding generation and several thereafter, the era of central banking in America corresponds almost perfectly with the era of government-business collusion, inflation, boom-and-bust cycles, protracted depressions, military alliances, military bases abroad, foreign wars, standing armies, and massive debt left for future generations.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations