American civil war Quote by Simon Schama

“There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.” quote by Simon Schama — Download Open image

“There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.”

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More by Simon Schama

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat…

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Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the…

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In its Greek origins, historia meant inquiry, and from Thucydides onwards, the past has been studied to understand its connections with the present.

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Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story - as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation -…

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Growing up in Britain as a rather loose Jew, the two things that didn't belong together were freedom and religious intensity. In America, they…

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In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not…

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From 1789, perhaps even before that, it had been the willingness of politicians to exploit either the threat or the fact of violence that…

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The default mode of modern writing about art is to despise any notion of singularity as so much overheated genius-fetishism.

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The synagogues of late antiquity and the early medieval period were built around imagery: imagery of remembering the Temple, but also of the celestial…

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At 11, 12, I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I…

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More American civil war quotes

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

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

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We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other…

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The 1860 election became a referendum on the southern way of life.

Bruce Catton

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What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg…

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Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery .…

Alexander H. Stephens

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“For my part I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove…

Shelby Foote

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and…

Abraham Lincoln

The triumph of the Confederacy... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and…

John Stuart Mill

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If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

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“Across the river he could see the burnt and crushed buildings of Fredericksburg, the debris piled along the streets, the scattered ruins of people's lives, lives that were changed forever. His men had done that. Not all of it, of course. The whole corps had seemed to go insane, had turned the town into some kind of violent party, a…

Jeff Shaara