Civil war Quote by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“[U]nless one is to yield to biological determinism and accept that the possession of black sin creates a unique black mentality and character, it is hard to see what living connection exists between American blacks today and their heterogeneous West African ancestors three centuries ago. And…” quote by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr — Download Open image

““[U]nless one is to yield to biological determinism and accept that the possession of black sin creates a unique black mentality and character, it is hard to see what living connection exists between American blacks today and their heterogeneous West African ancestors three centuries ago. And biological determinism--the theory that race determines mentality--is of course just another word for racism. Biological determinism is exactly the theory apologists for slavery used in the American South before the Civil War. It is bizarre to hear blacks invoking the same theory today.””

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.4 out of 5 (4 ratings)

More by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“In 1856 the Know-Nothings even ran a former president, Millard Fillmore, as their presidential candidate. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid", observed Abraham Lincoln. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal'. We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes'. When the Know-Nothings get control, it…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“for an informed judgment”

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Image

“His peroration, no doubt”

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Image

“The Irish were regarded as shiftless and drunken; moreover, they were papists, and their fealty to Rome, it was said, meant they could never become loyal Americans. They were subjected to severe discrimination in employment and were despised by genteel society. W.E.B. Du Bois, the black scholar, testified that when he grew up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the 1870s,…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“Yet the old faith in the power of Bryce's "amazing solvent" to fulfill Washington's conception of Americans as "one people" held fast. However much they suffered from social prejudice, the newcomers were not barred from civic participation, and civic participation indoctrinated them in the fundamentals of the American Creed. They altered the ethnic composition of the country, but they preserved…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“[P]ressed too far, the cult of ethnicity has had bad consequences too. The new ethnic gospel rejects the unifying vision of individuals from all nations melted into a new race. Its underlying philosophy is that America is not a nation of individuals at all but a nation of groups, that ethnicity is the defining experience for Americans, that ethnic ties…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“[I]s there not something basically hostile to the actor's art in the consanguinity principle? After all, what is acting but an exercise in dissimulation? The challenge to actors is to create characters on the stage; and these characters may be very different from what the actors are in real life. That indeed is the actor's triumph. The racialist restriction nullifies…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“Let us by all means teach black history, African history, women's history, Hispanic history, Asian history. But let us teach them as history, not as filiopietistic commemoration. The purpose of history is to promote not group self-esteem, but understanding of the world and the past, dispassionate analysis, judgment, and perspective, respect for divergent cultures and traditions, and unflinching protection for…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“In New York the curriculum guide for 11th-grade American history tells students that there were three "foundations" for the Constitution: the European Enlightenment, the "Haudenosaunee political system", and the antecedent colonial experience. Only the Haudenosaunee political system receives explanatory subheadings: "a. Influence upon colonial leadership and European intellectuals (Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau); b. Impact on Albany Plan of Union, Articles…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

“but also where the”

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Image

“Though Fidel came to boast of his Marxism-Leninism, he himself never joined the Communist Party. As the revolution careened along, the Communists may even…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Image

“To what extent did Castro at this point conceal secret communist purposes? He later said that he hid radical views in order to hold…

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Image

Explore all 31 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr quotes

More Civil war quotes

“Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of what has passed and the first of what will come, but is more--let me see--more like a single point plucked on a single strand of a vast spider web of winds, setting the whole scene atingle. That way;…

Ken Kesey

“Whatever happened in those more than one hundred years, from the time my great-great-great grandfather studied law to the time when my own father took his bar exam in 1989, I may never know. Perhaps it was just greed and the good, old-fashion corruption that comes with power. The Drexlers have moved from the fight for human rights to the…

Gwenn Wright

“AUSTRALIA, LIKE THE UNITED STATES, experienced a different path to inclusive institutions than the one taken by England. The same revolutions that shook England during the Civil War and then the Glorious Revolution were not needed in the United States or Australia because of the very different circumstances in which those countries were founded—though this of course does not mean…

Daron Acemoğlu

“These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora , from what I understand, is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from the national media in New York; and you don't have a recognizable, long-simmering conflict like the one…

Gary Shteyngart

“Thinking about the weather was one way of shutting out of his mind the appalling bloody human mess sprawled out over the bed of this seedy hotel room in central London. The sight and smell was sickening - even to a hardened detective like him. Felling the bile rising in his throat again, he hurried out into the dimly lit…

Mark Ellis

It cost about 75 cents to kill a man in Ceasar's time. The price rose to about $3,000 per man during the Napoleonic wars;…

Homer Bone

Image

Alabama soldiers, all I ask of you is to keep up with the Texans!

Robert E. Lee

Image

“ “In the South, football is confused with religion, chivalry, the Civil War, and women.” -Diane Roberts, The Quotable South ”

Deborah Ford

Strange, (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even assassination should so condense - perhaps only really lastingly condense - a Nationality.

Walt Whitman

Image

You must study to be frank with the world: frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do…

Robert E. Lee

Image

“Civil wars...are the best wars for the writer...because they have a way of continuing long afterwl wars between nations are resolved; because, with the…

Ralph Ellison

Image

I am out of money,we are all out of money,but we dont need money down here- Dont need anything but Men , Muskets, Ammunition, Hard Tack, Bacon and Letters from home.

James A. Connolly

Browse all 1,669 Civil war quotes

Civil war Quote by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

Related quotes

More by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr

More Civil war quotes