American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

New Hampshire Proclamation (February 21, 1786) issued under President (Governor) John Langdon of New Hampshire, a Proclamation for a Day of Public Fasting and Prayer: <A Proclamation For A Day of Public FASTING and PRAYER Throughout this State. Vain is the acknowledgement of a Supreme Ruler of the Universe, unless such acknowledgements influence our practice, and call forth those expressions of homage and adoration that are due to his character and providential government, agreeably to the light of nature, enforced by revelation, and countenanced by the practice of civilized nations, in humble and fervent application to the throne for needed...

Virginia Statute of Religious of Freedom (January 16, 1786) stated: <Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord...

John Stewart (1786-1823) was a missionary to the Wyandotte Indians of Ohio, founding what may have been the first Methodist mission in America. Born in Virginia to free African- American parents of mixed ancestry, white, black and Indian, John Stewart experienced a remarkable religious conversion in Marietta, Ohio, and in 1815, after surviving a four-year battle with tuberculosis, felt called to share the Gospel among the Wyandotte Indians of Goshen and Sandusky, Ohio. Wyandotte Indian leader, William Walker, helped discover that the tribe had taken a black man, Jonathan Pointer, prisoner as a young child. Pointer had learned the Indian...

New Hampshire Proclamation (October 21, 1785) the Legislature issued a proclamation, signed by President (Governor) John Langdon of New Hampshire: <A Proclamation For A General Thanksgiving THE munificent Father of Mercies, and Sovereign Disposer of Events, having been graciously pleased to relieve the UNITED STATES of AMERICA from the Calamities of a long and dangerous war: through the whole course of which, he continued to smile on the Labours of our Husbandmen, thereby preventing Famine (the almost inseparable Companion of War) from entering our Borders;-eventually restored to us the blessings of Peace, on Terms advantageous and honourable: And since the...

Peter Cartwright (September 1, 1785-September 25, 1872) was a Methodist circuit-riding preacher. He was one of the most famous evangelists and planters of new churches in the West. Peter Cartwright preached nearly 15,000 sermons and baptized almost 10,000 converts. In 1824, he left Kentucky and Tennessee because of his disdain for slavery, and moved to Illinois, where he ran for Congress. He lost his bid for Congress in 1846 to Abraham Lincoln. In recalling his own conversion, Peter Cartwright shared: <I went with weeping multitudes and bowed before the preaching stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of...