American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

David Josiah Brewer (June 20, 1837-March 28, 1910) was a Justice of the United State Supreme Court, 1889-1910. He had been appointed by President Chester A. Arthur as a circuit court judge, 1884; and served as Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, 1870-84. His uncle was Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, with whom he serve 9 years on the bench. Justice David Josiah Brewer gave the court's opinion in the 1892 case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, (143 U.S. 457-458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226): <No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to...

William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837-May 11, 1920) was a poet, novelist, editor and literary critic. He was one of America's first realistic fiction writers. He was the U.S. Consul in Venice; a writer for the New York Tribune and the Nation; assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly; and, in 1886, joined the staff of Harper's Monthly. Elected the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, William Dean Howells was a friend of Mark Twain, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. His works include: A Boy's Town; Their Wedding Journey; A...

Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837-December 22, 1899) was an American evangelist. He held crusades in the United States and Great Britain, with the hymn writer Ira D. Sankey. He founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, 1899, and several other schools.  D.L. Moody began his ministry in 1858 as a traveling shoe salesman who started a Sunday School mission for underprivileged children in Chicago. Classes were taught in an abandoned saloon.  D.L. Moody stated: <It is a masterpiece of the devil to make us believe that children cannot understand religion. Would Christ have made a child the standard of faith...

Michigan (January 26, 1837) was the 26th State admitted to the Union. On August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed into law an Act of Congress which prohibited slavery from entering the territory, titled: <An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, Article VI.> 1837MI001 Congress enabled the establishment of the government of Illinois, provided it followed the general tenets of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The Northwest Ordinance stated: <SECTION 13. And, for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws...

John William Jones (September 25, 1836-March 17, 1909) was a Confederate Chaplain during the Civil War, serving in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. He was instrumental in the numerous revivals that swept through troops, resulting in over 100,000 conversions. Chaplain J. William Jones had been ordained a Baptist missionary and was preparing to leave for China when the war broke out. He enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army and within a year began serving as a chaplain. His reports of the ongoing revival that he had witnessed among the Confederate troops are recorded in his work, Christ...