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If Robert E. Lee, who rebelled against the American government, deserves one, then why doesn't Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion?

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Government

More quotes by Eric Foner

History, however, is not a linear narrative of progress. Rights may be won and taken away; gains are never complete or uncontested, and popular movements generate their own countervailing pressures.

The Century: A Nation's-Eye View (2002)

The more fiercely the Confederacy fought for its independence, the more bitterly divided it became.

The South's Inner Civil War (1989)

Essentially what Lincoln said is slavery is a form of theft, the theft of labor, one person stealing another person's labor without that person’s permission.

The vast majority of white southerners, supported vociferously by the Democratic Party of the north, were deeply opposed to any equality for the former slaves.

If Lincoln Hadn't Died (2009)

The Confederate government increasingly molded its policies in the interest of the planter class.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eric Foner (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.