Noah Webster Quotes
Why not include a provision that everybody shall, in good weather, hunt on his own land and catch fish in rivers that are public property and that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter's night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right.
Webster, Noah. "On the Absurdity of a Bill of Rights." The American Magazine, Dec. 1787.
This statement summarized what had been a basic principle of American Law as derived from English law. See {587704}.
See {587703} for a similar statement by a Supreme Court Justice.
This quotation has been used by gay rights advocates. Opponents argue that a gay lifestyle is not “innocent” in that it is Biblically prohibited. This brings the issue of separation of church and state into the argument.
The authenticity of this quotation has been in contention for years. While many sources attributed this statement to Lincoln, no one has ever found a document in which it appears. Further, it was so clearly consonant with the anti-Prohibition argument that we suspected it as a “Phantom Quotation” (See http://politicalquotes.org/node/4063). As a result, we did not include this quotation until March of 2014. The reason we changed our mind was a newspaper article that was pointed out to us, and after reading it, we tilted in favor of inclusion. The article is http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/LincolnQuote/lpq0001.jpg
This statement by a Dutch politician at the beginning of the 19th century would have been a perfect statement of the conservative and cultural Republicans of the end of the 20th century ad beginning of the 21st. It includes the government overseeing of the morals of the society which most cries for minimal government do not have as an exception as herein. This quotation and {639886} together illustrate why it is so difficult to classify historical politicians in the left-right categories of a future time. Here Gogel seems a strong conservative arguing for minimal government , while in {639886} he sounds like a 21st century extreme liberal.
Noah Webster Jr. was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His "Blue-backed Speller" books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read. Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.
