Empire of Liberty Quotes

“Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“The Civil War was the climax of a tragedy that was preordained from the time of the Revolution. Only with the elimination of slavery could this nation that Jefferson had called “the world’s best hope” for democracy even begin to fulfill its great promise.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“By contrast, said Jefferson, the Southerners were “fiery, voluptuary, indolent, unsteady, independent, zealous for their own liberties but trampling on those of others, generous, candid, without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Americans became so thoroughly democratic that much of the period's political activity, beginning with the Constitution, was diverted to finding means and devices to tame that democracy.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“These incidents only foreshadowed much more extensive and violent student protests. In 1799 University of North Carolina students beat the president, stoned two professors, and threatened others with injury. In 1800 conflicts over discipline broke out at Harvard, Brown, William and Mary, and Princeton. In 1802 the rioting became even more serious. Williams College was under siege for two weeks. According to a tutor, Yale was in a state of “wars and rumors of wars.” After months of student rioting, Princeton’s Nassau Hall was mysteriously gutted by fire; the students, including William Cooper’s eldest son, were blamed for setting it a flame. As with other sorts of rioting, alcohol was often present. One student informed the president of Dartmouth that “the least quantity he could put up with . . . was from two to three pints daily.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In the decades following the Revolution America changed so much and so rapidly that Americans not only became used to change but came to expect it and prize it.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“All took for granted that a society could not long remain republican if a tiny minority controlled most of the wealth and the bulk of the population remained dependent servants or poor landless laborers. Equality was related to independence”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Americans knew only too well that republics were very delicate polities that required a special kind of society—a society of equal and virtuous citizens. By throwing off monarchy and becoming republics, declared South Carolina physician and historian David Ramsay, Americans had “changed from subjects to citizens,” and “the difference is immense.” “Subjects,” he said, “look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others.”3 Republics demanded far more morally from their citizens than monarchies did of their subjects. In monarchies each man’s desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by fear or force, by patronage or honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ultimately, from their citizens’ willingness to take up arms to defend their country and to sacrifice their private desires for the sake of the public good—from their “disinterestedness,” which was a popular synonym for virtue. This reliance on the moral virtue of their citizens, on their capacity for self-sacrifice and impartiality of judgment, was what made republican governments historically so fragile.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Unlike most of the other Revolutionary leaders, who were the first in their families to attend college, Burr was the son of a president of Princeton and the grandson of another Princeton president—Jonathan Edwards, the most famous theologian in eighteenth-century America—and, said Adams, he “was connected by blood with many respectable families in New England.”6 This presumption that he was already an aristocrat by blood separated Burr from most of the other leaders of the Revolutionary generation. He always had an air of superiority about him, and he always considered himself to be more of a gentleman than other men.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Foreigners thought the Americans’ eating habits were atrocious, their food execrable, and their coffee detestable. Americans tended to eat fast, often sharing a common bowl or cup, to bolt their food in silence, and to use only their knives in eating. Everywhere travelers complained about “the violation of decorum, the want of etiquette, the rusticity of manners in this generation.”36”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“After much jousting between the Congress and the president over the appointment of more officers, Madison by the end of the year had issued commissions to over eleven hundred individuals, 15 percent of whom immediately declined them, followed by an additional 8 percent who resigned after several months of service.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In 1812 the U.S. Army consisted of fewer than seven thousand regular troops.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Showing oneself eager for office was a sign of being unworthy of it, for the office-seeker probably had selfish views rather than the public good in mind.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Unlike in the Northern states, the only elected officials in Virginia were federal congressmen and state legislators; all the rest were either selected by the legislature or appointed by the governor or the county courts, which were self-perpetuating oligarchies that dominated local government. Thus popular democratic politics in Virginia and elsewhere in the South was severely limited, especially in contrast to the states of the North, where nearly all state and local offices had become elective and the turbulence of politics and the turnover of offices were much greater.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Between 1798 and 1808 American colleges were racked by mounting incidents of student defiance and outright rebellion—on a scale never seen before or since in American history.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“It was the family, John Adams had said in 1778, that was the “foundation of national morality.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Do not give to persons able to work for a living,” declared a critic of the traditional paternalistic charity in 1807. “Do not support widows who refuse to put out their children. Do not let the means of support be made easier to one who does not work than to those who do.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In 1788 Dr. Rush had told the clergy that, whatever their doctrinal differences, “you are all united in inculcating the necessity of morals,” and “from the success or failure of your exertions in the cause of virtue, we anticipate the freedom or slavery of our country.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“In a republic that depended on the intelligence and virtue of all citizens, the diffusion of knowledge had to be widespread. Indeed, said Noah Webster, education had to be “the most important business in civil society.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Once the Constitution became a legal rather than a political document, judicial review, although not judicial supremacy, became inevitable.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Both Jefferson and Madison remained convinced to the end of their lives that all parts of America’s government had equal authority to interpret the fundamental law of the Constitution—all departments had what Madison called “a concurrent right to expound the constitution.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Allowing unelected judges to declare laws enacted by popularly elected legislatures unconstitutional and invalid seemed flagrantly inconsistent with free popular government. Such judicial usurpation, said Richard Dobbs Spaight, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina, was “absurd” and “operated as an absolute negative on the proceedings of the Legislature, which no judiciary ought ever to possess.” Instead of being governed by their representatives in the assembly, the people would be subject to the will of a few individuals in the court, “who united in their own persons the legislative and judiciary powers,” making the courts more despotic than the Roman decemvirate or of any monarchy in Europe.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Yet the Pennsylvania radicals continued to assault judges for their abuse of discretionary authority.“Judges,” the popular radicals contended in 1807,“very often discover that the law, as written, may be made to mean something which the legislature never thought of. The greatest part of their decisions are in fact, and in effect, making new laws.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Private associations of men for the purpose of promoting arts, sciences, benevolence or charity are very laudable,” declared Noah Webster, but associations formed for political purposes were “dangerous to good government.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Most basic and dangerous of all was the Federalist creation of a huge perpetual federal debt, which, as New York governor George Clinton explained, not only would poison the morals of the people through speculation but would also “add an artificial support to the administration, and by a species of bribery enlist the monied men of the community on the side of the measures of the government. . . . Look to Great Britain.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“As William Plumer of New Hampshire complained, “It is impossible to censure measures without condemning men.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“Nevertheless, some Southerners like James Monroe still had serious reservations about the compromise, believing that assumption would reduce “the necessity for State taxation” and thus would “undoubtedly leave the national government more at liberty to exercise its powers and increase the subjects on which it will act.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“General Harmar led a force of some three hundred regulars and twelve hundred militia northward from Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati) to attack Indian villages in the area of what is now Fort Wayne. Although the Americans burned Miami and Shawnee villages and killed two hundred Indians, they lost an equal number of men and were forced to retreat. This show of force by the United States had proved embarrassing, and the administration was determined not to rely on militia to the same extent again.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

“The land north of the Ohio River and west of the Appalachians was to be surveyed and marked off in a rectangular pattern—with east-west baselines and north-south ranges—before any of it was sold. This territory was to be divided into townships six miles square, with each township in turn cut up into thirty-six numbered sections of 640 acres each. Land was to be sold at auction, but the minimum price was set at one dollar per acre, and no one could buy less than a section of 640 acres, which meant that a very substantial sum was needed for any purchase. In each township Congress retained four sections for future sale and set aside one other for the support of public education. Although only seven ranges were actually surveyed in southeastern Ohio, this policy of surveying in rectangular units became the basis of America’s land system.”
― Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815