The classics of the ancient world are everywhere in the literature of the Revolution, but thet are everywhere illustrative, not determinative, of… — Bernard Bailyn Ancient Copy Share Image
Never had Parliament or the crown, or both together, operated in actuality as theory indicated sovereign powers should. — Bernard Bailyn Actuality Copy Share Image
Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them. — Bernard Bailyn American revolution Copy Share Image
That by 1774 the final crisis of the constitution, brought on by political and social corruption, had been reached was, to most… — Bernard Bailyn Colonists Copy Share Image
Instantly available without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play. — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
At first the relevance of chattel slavery to libertarian ideals was noted only in individual passages of isolated pamphlets. — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
In no obvious sense was the American Revolution undertaken as a social revolution. — Bernard Bailyn American revolution Copy Share Image
What gave transcendent importance to the aggressiveness of power was the fact that its natural prey, its necessary victim, was liberty, or… — Bernard Bailyn Aggressiveness Copy Share Image
The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
Up and down the the still sparsely settled coast of British North America, groups of men-intellectuals and farmers, scholars and merchants, the… — Bernard Bailyn America Copy Share Image
Everyone knew that democracy - direct rule by all the people - required such spartan, soul-denying virtue on the part of all… — Bernard Bailyn Behavior Copy Share Image
The categories within which the colonists thought about the social foundations of politics were inheritances from classical antiquity, reshaped by seventeenth century… — Bernard Bailyn Antiquity Copy Share Image
It was an elevating, transforming vision: a new, fresh, vigorous, and above all morally regenerate people rising from the obscurity to defend… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
What Americans were really objecting to had nothing to do with constitutional principles. their objection was not to Parliament's constitutional right to… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
In England the practice of "virtual" representation provided reasonably well for the actual representation of the major interests of the society, and… — Bernard Bailyn England Copy Share Image
In effect the people were present through their representatives, and were themselves, step by step and point by point, acting in the… — Bernard Bailyn Acting Copy Share Image
“For the primary goal of the American Revolution which transferred American life and introduced a new era in human history, was not… — Bernard Bailyn American life Copy Share Image
Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the "left" opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts, emerging first… — Bernard Bailyn Army Copy Share Image
“For "as great a blessing as government is," the Rev. Peter Whitney explained, "like other blessings, it may become a scourge, a… — Bernard Bailyn Blessing Copy Share Image
“Power always and everywhere had had a pernicious, corrupting effect upon men. It "converts a good man in private life to a… — Bernard Bailyn Good man Copy Share Image
What were once felt to be defects-isolation, institutional simplicity, primitiveness of manners, multiplicity of religions, weaknesses in the authority of the state-could… — Bernard Bailyn Authority Copy Share Image
The fact that the ministerial conspiracy against liberty had risen from corruption was of the utmost importance to the colonists. — Bernard Bailyn Colonists Copy Share Image
Defiance to constituted authority leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went. — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
The primary function of a constitution was to mark out the boundaries of governmental powers-hence in England, where there was no constitution… — Bernard Bailyn Boundaries Copy Share Image
The idea of sovereignty current in the English speaking world of the 1760's was scarcely more than a century old. It had… — Bernard Bailyn Canon Copy Share Image
The ideas that the colonists put forward, rather than creating a new condition of fact, expressed one that has long existed; they… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
The most powerful presentations were based on legal precedents, especially Calvin's Case (1608), which, it was claimed, proved on the authority of… — Bernard Bailyn Authority Copy Share Image
The full bibliography of pamphlets relating to the Anglo-American struggle published in the colonies through the year 1776 contains not a dozen… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind… — Bernard Bailyn Copy Share Image
