Now And Then Quotes
In 1786, many veterans of the American Revolution had still not yet been paid the promised wages for their military service by the new national government. The States however had imposed taxes on farms to fund the new state governments and pay the state’s war debts mostly to rich merchants. Many veterans could not pay the taxes and some were thrown into debtors’ prison, and others had their farms foreclosed. Led by Daniel Shays, a small group of Massachusetts men conducted a mini rebellion by closing local court houses and tried to take over the local state armory. The Governor put down the rebellion by force and the rebels were jailed. Samuel Adams, the former governor, recommended the death penalty (see {630527}), and several of the rebels were executed. Thomas Jefferson disagreed, via this famous quotation. This was one of the early crises of the new country and it was handled very poorly and unfairly.
Cornwallis, who had the misfortune to be the Commanding General of the British forces which were defeated by the brilliant strategy of George Washington and his French Allies, never approved of the British Strategy in America. As a loyal officer, he was a field commander and did not control the overall strategy which most military historians agree was not very sound. While the British controlled New York City, they were surrounded by Washington’s troops and a hostile population. They Armies were separated and while generally too strong to defeat in the field were never strong enough or numerous enough to pacify large areas of the colonies.
At the time hundreds of thousands of Armenians were being massacred by the Turks. Some atrocities were spontaneous, many were committed under orders, and many were triggered by Turkish leaders who whipped up the resentment and hate for the non-Muslim Armenians and then forced unarmed Armenians into areas where the Muslim Turks themselves were short of food and supplies. See {626835} for one of the several admissions of the intended genocide.
