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Democracy Quote by Eric Foner

““Republicans, white and black, heaped scorn upon “respectables” who did not participate directly in the violence but “could not stop their sons from murdering their inoffensive neighbors in broad daylight.” Yet their complicity went beyond silence in the face of unspeakable crimes. Through their constant vilification of blacks, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Reconstruction, the “old political leaders” fostered a climate that condoned violence as a legitimate weapon in the struggle for Redemption.””

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“Successful teaching rests both on a genuine and selfless concern for students and on the ability to convey to them a love of history.”

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“New laws also redefined in the interest of the planter the terms of credit and the right to property—the essence of economic power in the rural South. Lien laws now gave a landlord’s claim to his share of the crop precedence over a laborer’s for wages or a merchant’s for supplies, thus shifting much of the risk of farming from…

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“Ironically, as Illinois Sen. Richard Yates pointed out, opponents of expansionism employed arguments extremely reminiscent of proslavery ideology, while its supporters upheld the principle that nonwhites could be successfully incorporated into the body politic. (No people, quipped Nevada Sen. James W. Nye, were “too degraded” for citizenship: “We have New Jersey, and all things considered, it has proven a success.”)”

Whatever Lincoln's racial views, which are not totally modern and egalitarian in many ways, he believes blacks should have this natural right to improve…

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Who owns history? Everyone and no one--which is why the study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.

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