Pete Seeger Quotes
Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.
Seeger, Pete. The Incompleat Folksinger. Simon and Schuster, 1972, p. 469.
James was a Catholic King and did not like Protestants but positively detested Puritans. He made good his and “harried them out of the land” much to the benefit of the American colonies to which they immigrated and the detriment of England. Many of the immigrants to America came for the religious freedom, but in the early days, no sooner did they arrive and become the majority, than they began to discriminate against other religions.
What oven gets overlooked in the history leading up to the Civil War was the terribly repressive atmosphere that developed in the South itself over the issue of slavery. There were some abolitionists in the South, and most of the slaves were held by a relatively few wealthy men. Many with no slaves or only one or two, might go either way on the slavery issue and the various fugitive slave laws. And Northern abolitionists sometimes would come South to investigate and report on the conditions of the slaves of the South. While still in the Union, many Southern areas made a mockery of the Constitutional protections of freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Censorship and repressive activities invaded privacy, and the South, for both Northerners and English travelers, no longer had the charm of the past. Note the use of the term “reign of terror”. Bunch was a seasoned diplomat experienced at reporting on conditions.
Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist.
