American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

William Cowper (November 15, 1731-April 25, 1800) was an English poet who pioneered the English Romantic movement. His works include: Table Talk; Truth; Expostulations; On Receipt of My Mother's Picture; and The Castaway. His most renowned work, published in 1785, was The Task, which included his best-known poem, "The Diverting History of John Gilpin." He also completed a translation of Homer. In 1779, William Cowper published The Olney Hymns, which include: "Oh! for a Closer Walk with God," "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood," and "God Moves in a Mysterious Way." In his work, The Task, 1785, William Cowper composed...

Richard Stockton (October 1, 1730-February 28, 1781) was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the Continental Congress, 1776; an associate justice on the Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1774-76; and a member of the Executive Council of New Jersey, 1768- 76. His son Richard was a U.S. Senator, 1796-99; and a U.S. Representative, 1813-15. Another son, Robert, served with prominence as a U.S. Naval officer in the War of 1812; helped freed slaves found the country of Liberia, West Africa in 1821; and conquered California, proclaiming it a U.S. Territory, on August 17, 1846. Robert...

Samuel West (March 3, 1730-September 24, 1807) was a Chaplain in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He was noted for greatly assisting General George Washington by deciphering a letter of treason from Dr. Benjamin Church intended for the British Admiral at Newport, Rhode Island. A graduate of Harvard, 1754, Samuel West was a member of the committee to frame the Constitution of Massachusetts, and a member of the Massachusetts Convention to adopt the U.S. Constitution. In July of 1776, as Dartmouth's minister, Samuel West spoke in Boston concerning the War for Independence: <Our cause is so just and good...

Charles Thomson (November 29, 1729-August 16, 1824) Secretary of the Continental Congress (1774-1789). He, along with Continental Congress President John Hancock, were the two men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the rest mostly signing the engrossed copy on August 2, 1776. Upon retiring from Congress, Charles Thomson researched for 19 years and published his 4-volume "Thomson's Bible" in 1808, which contained the first American translation of the Greek Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament made in 3 B.C., and was the version most quoted by the early apostles. Charles Thomson...

Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729-July 9, 1797) was an English orator, author and leader in Great Britain during the time of the Revolutionary War. On March 22, 1775, in his Second Speech on the Conciliation with America-The Thirteen Resolutions, Edmund Burke addressed Parliament, saying: <Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion...