Josiah I Quincy Quotes
We are not to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest, sharpest conflicts. We are not to flatter ourselves, that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes: let us consider, before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw.
Josiah Quincy I, 1709–1784, Attorney, Patriot & Revolutionary War Colonel, Speech warning about the difficulty of the struggle if the colonists declared independence, Boston, 1774
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
England had gone through a bloody Civil War with the Parliament on one side and the King on the other. The King lost and was beheaded later that year. See {597353}.
The simplistic view that the American colonists were patriots and the British were the colonizers against whom the colonists revolted is not really accurate. The American colonists were polarized into patriots and loyalists. The Loyalist Americans ranged from many of those merchants whose business depended upon England, those whose family were still in England, those whose religion made them loyal to the Church of England, slaves who would be free under British law, Americans who had strong cultural and intellectual ties to England and those Americans who were great believers in monarchy and whose honor required that they fulfill the oath that they had taken to the King of England. Some of the worst atrocities of the American Revolution occurred in the battles of these Americans against each other. See {82105} for more on this point.
The ambassador's hyperbole caused or was the excuse for President Lyndon Johnson to send the marines into the Dominican Republic. There were only two American civilian casualties—both were reporters accidently shot by U.S. Marines.
This quotation shows what prompted the Texas rebellion against Mexico. Military dictators had taken over the Federal Government of Mexico and Mexico was no longer a free country.
This quotation shows that the dissent leading to the American Revolution did not emerge suddenly in 1776 after the Battle of Bunker Hill. Dissent, sedition and even violence was documented here in 1774. Salem at the time was the second largest port in the colony and the customs tax collectors—Loyalist Americans—were run out of Salem.
This was written more than a year before the “blows” began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency.
Fox was one of the opposition leaders who were opposed to the heavy handed policies that the British King and Government had used.
