American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804-October 8, 1869) was the 14th President of the United States, 1853-57; president of New Hampshire Constitutional Convention, 1850; Brigadier General in Mexican War, 1846-48; U.S. Senator, 1837-42; U.S. Representative, 1833-37; married Jane Means Appleton, 1834; member of the New Hampshire Legislature, 1829- 33, being State Speaker of the House, 1831-33; admitted to bar, 1827; and graduated from Bowdoin College, 1824, being friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1839, while serving in the U.S. Senate, Franklin Pierce wrote to his law partner: <I have dwelt somewhat more this winter upon the truths of...

Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804-May 19, 1864) was an American author and poet. He became famous through his novel, The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850. He was a friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States. Other well-known works of his include: The House of Seven Gables, Twice-Told Tales, Blithedale Romance and Mosses from an Old Manse. In his poem, The Star of Calvary, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: <It is the same infrequent star, The all mysterious light, That, like a watcher gazing on The changes of the night, Toward the hill of Bethlehem,...

United States Congress (December 3, 1803) ratified A Treaty Between the United States and the Kaskaskia Tribe of Indians. This treaty, which had been recommended by President Thomas Jefferson, included the annual support of a Catholic missionary priest of $100, to be paid out of the Federal treasury. At a later date two other treaties with similar provisions were made: the Treaty with the Wyandots etc., in 1805 and the Treaty with the Cherokees in 1806. The treaty provided: <And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they...

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882) was the American poet who composed some of the best loved poems in American literature, including The Concord Hymn, written in 1837 for the dedication of the monument where the Revolutionary War began at Concord's North Bridge, April 19, 1775, which made famous the line, "the shot heard around the world." The most recognizable stanza of this poem is inscribed on the base of Daniel Chester French's Minute Man Statue: <By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled; Here once the embattled farmers stood; And fired...

Ohio (March 1, 1803) was the 17th 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. On April 30, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed The Enabling Act for Ohio, which required the government being formed in that territory to be: <...not repugnant to the [Northwest Ordinance].> 1803OH001 The Northwest Ordinance stated: <SECTION 13. And, for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious...