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Book

We hold these truths-- : and other words that made America

Author

Paul Aron

Call Number

  • 973.3 A7693 (CEN)

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Edition

1st pbk. ed.

Publication Information

Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, ©2008.

Physical Description

xiii, 242 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Summary

We Hold These Truths. ... presents 54 historically powerful quotes from the country's founders and founding documents and provides rich narratives that highlight their astounding, and generally unknown, origins. --publisher.

Notes

"In association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation."

Contents

  • Abigail Adams : "Remember the ladies"
  • John Adams : "Facts are stubborn things" ; "[T]he most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived" ; The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people" ; "Thomas Jefferson survives"
  • Anonymous : "E Pluribus Unum" ; "Yankee Doodle went to town"
  • John Dickinson : "By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall" ; "United, we stand--Divided, we fall"
  • Olaudah Equiano : "The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying"
  • Benjamin Franklin : "Early to bed and early to rise" ; Let the experiment be made" ; "Join, or die" ; "We must ... all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately" ; "A republic if you can keep it
  • Nathan Hale : "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country"
  • Alexander Hamilton: "I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man" ; "Your people is a great beast"
  • John Hancock: "I write so that King George III may read without his spectacles"
  • Patrick Henry: "If this be treason, make the most of it" ; " Give me liberty, or give me death"
  • Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" ; " a wall of separation between church and state" ; "I like a little rebellion now and then" ; "a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government" ; "We have the wolf by the ears" ; "Is it the fourth?"
  • John Paul Jones: "I have not yet begun to fight."
  • Francis Scott Key: "O! say can you see" ; "In God is our trust"
  • James Madison: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary" ; "Congress shall make no law"
  • John Marshall: "An act of the legislature, repugnant to the Constitution, is void" ; "The government of the Union is, emphatically and truly a government of the people" ; "The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it"
  • George Mason: "All men are by nature equally free and independent"
  • James Otis: "Taxation without representation is tyranny" ; "No taxation without representation"
  • Thomas Paine: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again" ; "These are the times that try men's souls"
  • William Prescott: "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes"
  • Paul Revere: "One, if by land, and two, if by sea" ; "The British are coming"
  • Tachnedorus: "Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one"
  • George Washington: "I can't tell a lie" ; "I heard the bullets whistle" ; "their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet" ; "If their citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own" ; "My movement to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution" ; "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen"
  • Phillis Wheatley: "In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom"
  • James Wilson: "We the people."

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