Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they know not what they should do.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The Transcendentalist." Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, James Munroe and Company, 1849.
Based on this statement, the coup came to be called “The Gentlemen’s Coup.”
Alluding to the practice of advisors and handlers scripting and packaging presidential candidates for conventions and debates:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
