American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Robert Carter Nicholas (January 28, 1715-September 8, 1780) representing James City, was a member and treasurer of the Virginia House of Burgesses. The grandson of wealthy Virginia landowner, Robert "King" Carter, he was appointed Judge of the High Court of Chancery and Court of Appeals. In 1775, he served as President Pro-tem of the Continental Convention. He was a member of the Virginia Assembly and served on the Virginia Court of Appeals. Robert Carter Nicholas was a member of Virginia's Committee of Corresphodence, which helped unify the American colonies. The idea of Committees of Corresspondence was proposed by Samuel Adams in...

George Whitefield (December 16, 1714-September 30, 1770) was an evangelist of the Great Awakening in the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. He attended Oxford with John and Charles Wesley, who began the Methodist movement. He confronted the established churches, resulting in doors being closed to him. He resorted to preaching out-of-doors, and the colonial population responded with crowds sometimes over thirty thousand. Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that he was able to hear Whitefield's voice nearly a mile away. George Whitefield's preaching throughout the Eastern seaboard, greatly contributed toward the thirteen individualistic colonies melding into one country. Benjamin...

Jonathan Shipley (1714-December 6, 1788) was the bishop of St. Asaph Anglican Church in London, and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. In 1774, he appealed in the House of Lords: <At present we force every North American to be our enemy....It is a strange idea we have taken up, to cure their resentments by increasing provocation....That just God, whom we have all so deeply offended, can hardly inflict a severer national punishment than by committing us to the natural consequences of our own conduct.> 1714JS001 <I look upon North America as the only great nursery of freeman left on the face...

Emmerich de Vattel (1714-1767) was a German diplomat on assignment to Bern, Switzerland. He was acclaimed for having written The Law of Nations, 1758. This work, especially with its emphasis on liberty, equality of individuals, and the right of nations to defend themselves, significantly impacted the Founding Fathers. The son of a Protestant minister, Vattel's work drew heavily upon the German philosopher Christian Wolff's 1749 work by the same title. Vattel implicated that men need to live: <Agreeably to their nature, and in conformity to the views of their common Creator; a law that our own safety, our happiness, our most...

Jean Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712-July 2, 1778) was a Swiss-born French philosopher, writer and political theorist. He was made famous by his essay on how arts and sciences corrupt human behavior, 1749. His works include: writing for Diderot's Encyclopedie, 1745; Origin of the Inequality of Man, 1755; Confessions, 1782; and The Social Contract, 1762, which influenced the French Revolution. In the didactic novel Emilius and Sophia, 1762, vol. III, Book IV, he wrote: <I will confess to you, that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence upon my heart. Peruse...