Samuel E. Morison Quotes
Make no mistake; the American Revolution was not fought to obtain freedom, but to preserve the liberties that Americans already had as colonials. Independence was no conscious goal, secretly nurtured in cellar or jungle by bearded conspirators, but a reluctant last resort, to preserve "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Morison, Samuel E. The Oxford History of the American People. Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 212.
Jefferson had deliberately modified John Locke’s phrase “life, liberty and property.
The resolution was transmitted to the Provincial Congress on June 6, 1775 where it was tabled. Essentially this position was taken by the Continental Congress and General Washington—See {614018}—and then Washington reversed himself, {614220}
This was written and adopted by Vermont a decade before the United States Constitution the ideas for which were in existence in America before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
The opening line of the North Vietnamese Declaration of Independence was a quotation of Thomas Jefferson’s in the American Declaration of Independence. What is even more interesting is that Ho Chi Minh who wrote it asked for and received help in checking his translation from an American agent of the OSS---Office of Strategic Service, precursor to the CIA. While Ho adopted much from the American Democratic concepts, he did not include free elections of multiple party candidates, freedom of speech, travel, or many other basics.
The preamble to this declaration of womens’ rights cleverly beginy s with the words of the Declaration of Independence with the single change that “all men” is replaced with “all men and women.” The message was clear. If the founders had a moral right and duty to revolt for these objectives women would be justified and duty bound to make similar efforts. That message terrified many men of the era.
It was drafted by John Adams. 9 Years later the French in their Revolution used the first clause in their Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen—See Quotation 602404 For an opposite point of view see Quotation 635927.
Franklin was also an accomplished political cartoonist.
Samuel Eliot Morison was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. Morison wrote the popular Oxford History of the American People (1965), and co-authored the classic textbook The Growth of the American Republic (1930) with Henry Steele Commager.
