21 Edmund Morgan Quotes for You to Enjoy

Edmund Morgan

American Historian

Born: Jan 17, 1916

Died: Jul 8, 2013

American Government History Independence Past People

Related authors: Carter G. Woodson Daniel J. Boorstin David McCullough Henry Adams James Truslow Adams Robert Fogel Tara Westover Will Durant

The three hundredth anniversary of the Salem witch trials of 1692 comes at a time when witchcraft commands a scholarly attention that would have been puzzling in 1892 or even in 1792. Edmund Morgan

Time Trials Three Hundredth Would Scholarly Attention Puzzling Anniversary Witch Witchcraft Been Salem Commands Even

To make a successful film from a successful play is probably much more difficult than making one from scratch, just as any carpenter will tell you that it is more difficult to restore an old house than to build a comparable new one. Edmund Morgan

You Old Will Build Difficult Carpenter Tell Restore More New House Make Making New One Than Any Scratch Just Old House Much Successful Comparable Film Play

It is hard for anyone who discovers George Washington not to write about him, perhaps because he is so hard to discover and such a surprise when you do. Edmund Morgan

You About Write He Perhaps Him Because George Surprise Discover Discovers George Washington Anyone Hard Who Washington

In 1595, by order of the Privy Council, the English armed services abandoned the longbow and fought with muskets for the next two centuries and more. Nobody is sure why. Edmund Morgan

Abandoned More Council Nobody Armed Armed Services Sure Privy Order Centuries Next English Fought Why Services Two

Liberty had many friends in the eighteenth century. Edmund Morgan

Liberty Had Friends Eighteenth Eighteenth Century Century Many

Americans, perhaps more than most people, have pondered the question of who they are and what their country is. Edmund Morgan

People Country More Perhaps Most Question Than American Who

No one escapes from the past without bearing some of its burdens. Edmund Morgan

Past Some Bearing No-One Without Escapes Burdens

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. Edmund Morgan

Wisdom Age Men Too Some Some Men Constitutions Touched More Sacred Ark Suppose Like Beyond Look Reverence Covenant Than Amendment Did Human Ascribe Sanctimonious Them Deem

The first English settlers of North America knew they were making history. New Englanders in particular were so sure of it that they started writing their own accounts of themselves as soon as they got here. Edmund Morgan

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; Madison wrote not only the United States Constitution, or at least most of it, but also the most searching commentary on it that has ever appeared. Each of them served as president of the United States for eight years. What they had to say to each other has to command attention. Edmund Morgan

Constitution Independence Other President Say States Madison Only Had Attention Most Also Wrote Least Command Years Commentary Eight Declaration Them Jefferson Appeared Each Searching United Ever United States Served

When Landon Carter, a Virginia plantation owner, read the Declaration of Independence two days after it was issued, he wondered whether its ringing affirmation of equality meant that slaves must be freed. If so, he confided to his diary, 'You must send them out of the country, or they must steal for their support.' Edmund Morgan

You Equality Independence Country Virginia Out Must Carter Ringing Steal He Freed Support Days Read His Diary Affirmation Wondered Send Confided Owner After Whether Declaration Them Meant Plantation Slaves Two

The colonial period has been the proving ground in America for the new social history, which concentrates on the ordinary doings of ordinary people rather than on high culture and high politics. Unfortunately ordinary people, almost by definition, leave behind only faint traces of their existence. Edmund Morgan

Politics History Culture People Definition Has-Been High Rather Only Colonial Almost New Faint Period Traces Leave Been Existence Proving Than America Behind Unfortunately Ordinary Which Ordinary People Social Ground

The starting point for the new history, both in Europe and America, has been the record of births, marriages, and deaths, which most literate societies preserve in one form or another. In colonial America, surviving records of this kind - as of every other kind - are most abundant for New England. Edmund Morgan

History Every Other Has-Been Marriages Kind Record Colonial Both Records Point Abundant New Most New England Another Been Deaths Surviving America Form Literate Which England Europe Societies Starting Starting Point Preserve

The men who founded and governed Massachusetts and Connecticut took themselves so seriously that they kept track of everything they did for the benefit of posterity and hoarded their papers so carefully that the whole history of the United States, recounted mainly by their descendants, has often appeared to be the history of New England writ large. Edmund Morgan

History Seriously Men Carefully Took Benefit Everything States Papers Posterity Writ Mainly New Massachusetts Track New England Governed Did Often The History Of Themselves England Who Descendants Connecticut Large Whole Appeared United United States Founded Kept

So many able historians have worked over seventeenth-century New England that one would think there was little left to be learned from the people who lived there - fewer than 100,000 at the end of the century. Seldom, apart perhaps from the Greeks and Romans, have so few been studied by so many. Edmund Morgan

People Few Think Would Able Seldom Studied Over New Perhaps Learned New England Been Historians Left End Than Greeks Fewer Romans Apart Little Century Worked England Who Many Lived

The difference between eccentricity and originality in historical studies is often difficult to detect at first encounter. When a radically new interpretation of a large segment of history makes its appearance, time is needed to sift the evidence. Edmund Morgan

Time History First Interpretation Difficult Evidence Sift Detect Eccentricity Segment Studies Between New Makes Encounter Historical Often Difference Radically Large Appearance Originality Needed

Everybody knows that Alexander Hamilton was a founding father of the United States, a young father to be sure: only thirty at the time of the Constitutional Convention and just turned thirty-eight when he left behind his brilliant career as Secretary of the Treasury. Edmund Morgan

Time Brilliant Father Young Alexander Thirty Everybody Secretary States Constitutional Only He Knows Sure Hamilton His Left Behind Just Convention Turned United United States Founding Treasury Career

Why consider debates in the English House of Commons in 1628 along with documents on American developments in the late eighteenth century? The juxtaposition is not capricious, because the Commons during this period generated many of the ideas that were later embodied in the government of the United States. Edmund Morgan

Government Late Consider Later States Embodied Developments Along Ideas House Period House Of Commons Documents Because Were Debates American Eighteenth Eighteenth Century Commons Century Juxtaposition Capricious English Many United Why United States

Both European and American historians have done away with any conceptual limits on what in the past needs and deserves investigating. The result, among other things, has been a flood of works on gender history, black history, and ethnic history of all kinds. Edmund Morgan

Needs History Result Black Gender Past Other Has-Been Black History Kinds Both Investigating Conceptual Limits Been Historians American Any Done In The Past Ethnic European Works Flood Away Deserves Among Things

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