James Monroe Quotes

Honore Gabriel Victor Requiti. The French King had just opened the French National Assembly which contained deputies (delegates) from the clergy, the nobility and the people. The King had made what some deputies thought was a very constructive and responsible speech opening the assembly. Mirabeau observed that as long as there was an absolute monarch in place, even a benign one. It was the presence of a monarch itself that was evil.

Fremont and some of the Radical Republicans wanted Lincoln immediately to declare the slaves of the rebelling states free. As a major general in charge of an area, he wrote a military order emancipating all the slaves in his jurisdiction. President Lincoln countermanded the order as soon as he found out. He wanted Fremont to only free the slaves whose owners were actively working against the union. Lincoln needed to hold the border states like Maryland in the Union and was working on a plan whereby slave owners who were loyal to the Union would be economically compensated when their slaves were freed. If loyal slaveholders in Fremont’s area would lose their slaves with no compensation, Lincoln feared that the otherwise loyal border states would be driven to the confederacy thus shifting the balance of power. Lincoln had his own plan for emancipation and would not allow Fremont to alter that. As a result of this speech, the Radical Republicans nominated Fremont to run against Lincoln. For a few weeks he looked like he would run, but then he and Lincoln made a deal. Lincoln fired Montgomery Blair, Fremont’s arch enemy, from the cabinet, and Fremont withdrew from the election.

1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Describing the career of Alexander Hamilton:

Unfortunately for France, he was right.

Early in his career, Santa Anna was an enthusiast for democracy. However, the republican form of government did not work at the time in Mexico and he developed into a despot and dictator.

While President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were putting all their eggs in the Shah’s basket, Simon was one of the government who had a different perception of our key ally. See {620093} for a CIA corroborating view.

He was referring to governments that imposed some form of morality in their citizens. Free governments do no dictate a morality and require their citizens to follow it. He was very much opposed to Prohibition which he saw as a poor government—Herbert Hoover’s Administration—which was imposing its narrow morality on all. He was very suspicious of government actions where the government claimed that the action was for moral objectives. This is a classic Libertarian view. In general, it is Fundamentalists and ideologues who want to impose their particular morality on all. See {620693} for a related idea.

This quotation is a great demonstration of how much wiser and the better politician of all the crowned heads of Europe that Queen Victoria was. There were stirrings of freedom and desire for parliamentary government throughout Europe. Queen Victoria, even though and perhaps because she was a young woman, had a great feel for fairness and reasonableness and had read a great deal of history. There were some radical red socialists calling for complete radical revolution scaring European Royalty profoundly. They reacted very conservatively and with reaction, reverting to more tyrannical practices of the past urged in that path by very conservative, right wing advisors. Victoria also had little respect for some of the monarchs who had little interest in their people and much with their personal power and wealth. In the end, it was England which was the only nation which never had a serious radical socialist / communist threat, and that had much to do with Victoria’s political acumen and wisdom.

Many historians would argue that it was the party governments that caused most of the downfall of failed republics and individual dictators then stepped in and took over the failure in process.