“The Constitution was a compromise between slaveholding interests of the South and moneyed interests of the North. For the purpose of uniting the thirteen states into one great market for commerce, the northern delegates wanted laws regulating interstate commerce, and urged that such laws require only a majority of Congress to pass. The South agreed to this, in return for… — Howard Zinn Copy Share
“That contract law was intended to discriminate against working people and for business is shown by Horwitz in the following example of the early nineteenth century: the courts said that if a worker signed a contract to work for a year, and left before the year was up, he was not entitled to any wages, even for the time he… — Howard Zinn Copy Share
“A writer in early 1930, boosting the beauty business, started off a magazine article with the sentence: "The average American woman has… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
“A black man, Benjamin Banneker, who taught himself mathematics and astronomy, predicted accurately a solar eclipse, and was appointed to plan the new city of Washington, wrote to Thomas Jefferson: I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse… — Howard Zinn Copy Share
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
“a good education is a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, because each enrich the other. The accumulation of knowledge, while… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence,… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
Now I have been studying very closely what happens every day in the courts in Boston, Massachusetts. You would be astounded--maybe you wouldn't, maybe… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
They were not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, they were absent in the Constitution and they were invisible in the new political democracy.… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
“Sexual purity was to be the special virtue of a woman. It was assumed that men, as a matter of biological nature, would sin, but woman must not surrender. As one male author said: “If you do, you will be left in silent sadness to bewail your credulity, imbecility, duplicity, and premature prostitution.” A woman wrote that females would get… — Howard Zinn Copy Share
“Middle-class Americans might be invited to join a new elite by attacks against the corruption of the established rich. The New Yorker Cadwallader Colden, in his Address to the Freeholders in 1747, attacked the wealthy as tax dodgers unconcerned with the welfare of others (although he himself was wealthy) and spoke for the honesty and dependability of “the midling rank… — Howard Zinn Copy Share
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will… — Howard Zinn Copy Share Image
