Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
The shot heard round the world.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Concord Hymn." Poems, James Munroe and Company, 1847, p. 248.
At the time of the American Revolution there were strong abolitionist forces working against slaver and the slave trade. Southern American slave-owners, the political leadership of the South, feared that England would force slavery reforms on their colonies. Hence, severance from England eliminated that threat. In retrospect, they were quite right for it was England which outlawed the slave trade and led the worldwide anti-slavery movement which had little effect on the new independent America and the political bias in favor of the south of the American compact caused slavery to survive in America, long after the vast majority of the population would have it ended. It took the Civil War to do it.
Lafayette was so engrossed with fighting in the Revolution that he really did not have a true picture of the total American attitude on slavery. He had fallen in love with the American idea and ideal based on the writings of intellectuals like Paine and Jefferson. Most of his time in America was spent with George Washington. The few American leaders he talked with were Northerners and/or intellectuals who were not rabid enthusiasts for slavery or were opposed. Slavery was so contradictory to the Declaration of Independence, Lafayette assumed that after the war was won and America was independent, the Americans would surely abolish slavery. After the Constitutional Convention many people were disappointed that the delegates had given in to the Southern slavery bloc. None more so than Lafayette.
Most Canadians supported the English despite the letter.
The French Revolution was out of control and terribly bloody. Most Americans and even English who supported the principles and reasons for the French revolution ceased their support because of the Reign of Terror. Jefferson, however, saw a link between France and American democracy and was reluctant to end support.
The treaty ending the Revolutionary war guaranteed that the English bankers and merchants who had debts going back to before the American Revo
lution would have “no impediment” in collecting their debts in America. However, Rhode Island and Virginia in particular placed many impediments and made it virtually impossible for debts to be collected in their states. The John Jay led Supreme Court, in particular, overturned state actions on the grounds that they had implemented Patrick Henry’s sentiment and hence violated the treaty.
Beaumarchais served the French King Louis XVI as a spy and advisor on foreign affairs. He was instrumental in influencing the French King and his government to tilt in favor of the American Revolutionaries.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
