Land of Hope Quotes

“...Professional historical writing has, for a great many years now, been resistant to the idea of history as a narrative. Some historians have even hoped that history could be made into a science. But this approach seems unlikely ever to succeed, if for no other reason than that it fails to take account the ways we need stories to speak to the fullness of our humanity and help us orient ourselves in the world. The impulse to write history and organize our world around stories is intrinsic to us as human beings, We are, at our core, remembering and story-making creatures, and stories are one of the chief ways we find meaning in the flow of events.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“A culture without memory will necessarily be barbarous and easily tyrannized, even if it is technologically advanced.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben on February 23 to begin training the army, things began to turn around, and the army miraculously regained its fighting spirit. Von Steuben was a pro; he had been a member of the Prussian Army, had served on the General Staff of Frederick the Great, and was a believer in the revolutionary cause. He immediately began to put the American troops through an intense regimen of drilling. By May, he had made them into a reasonably cohesive military force. Encouraged by news of the French military alliance, and by a promise of extra pay from the Congress,”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“A long list of grievances followed, laying nearly all the blame at the feet of the King, following the personalization strategy that Paine had so expertly deployed in Common Sense. “He has refused his Assent to Laws…. He has dissolved representative houses…. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.… He has kept among us standing armies.… He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people…. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“The Sedition Act of 1918 went even further, prohibiting anyone to “utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government, the Constitution, or the armed forces. More than a thousand people were convicted under these two acts, including Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to ten years in prison for advocating resistance to conscription. Such convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States (1919), in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously declared that the doctrine of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting “fire” in a theater or in other incidents in which such speech presents a “clear and present danger.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“The Sedition Act of 1918 went even further, prohibiting anyone to “utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government, the Constitution, or the armed forces. More than a thousand people were convicted under these two acts, including Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to ten years in prison for advocating resistance to conscription. Such convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States (1919), in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously declared that the doctrine of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting “fire” in a theater or in other incidents in which such speech presents a “clear and present danger.” Did Wilson overreact?”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“about the eternal principles of liberty.” “Never heard of ’em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’s Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanack.” “Well, then, what was the matter? and what did you mean in going to the fight?” “Young man, what we meant in going for those red-coats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story

“But every great victory in war means the creation of a new set of problems in peace, and the French and Indian War was no exception to the rule.”
― Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story