Marquis de Lafayette Quotes


We have made an admirable and almost incredible destruction of all abuses and prejudices; that every thing not directly useful to, or coming from, the people has been leveled.


Context

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier


Citations

Marquis de Lafayette, 1757-1834, French Statesman & Major General in the American Revolutionary Continental Army, Member of the French Chamber of Deputies, Letter to George Washington, March 17, 1790

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

In the late 1830's a revolutionary political movement of small tenant farmers grew in upper New York State. There was much violence and anti-renters were hanged and jailed. After a few years they elected 14 members of the state legislature and had their fellows pardoned:


At the time, Capetown was under the control of the Dutch East India Company which had recruited Gordon from Scotland. There was a wave of liberality following the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the very vocal English, anti-slavery, reformers. The Dutch were concerned mainly with making money, and that they thought that meant stability and the status quo. Gordon was their strong spokesman on this. Like American Southern slave owners, Gordon read the Bible as God endorsing slavery and the inferiority of Blacks. Thus, reformers did not "believe in God any more".


The Diggers were a religious-economic movement that even today would be considered very radical. They advocated the right of the poor to go onto public lands and farm them—thus the name “Diggers.” Beyond their opposition to the private ownership of land to the exclusion of the poor, Winstanley and the Diggers promulgated another very modern doctrine: That the poor should take the responsibility and have the right to determine how the society should provide for the poor. A version of this became one of the Mottos of the Poverty Program of 1964. See {616966}.


Harding, not the most historically knowledgeable of American Presidents, had forgotten the revolutionary origin of the United States or its drastically experimental nature. It was the fear of Communism and the Russian Revolution that gave revolution a bad name at the time.


There were many Americans who were Tories and proBritish. There were also many who, while they were not pro British, were not enthusiastic about the Revolution and the death and devastation that it brought. In France however, the American Revolution was seen in much more romantic and theoretical terms. See {621958} and {621957}.


Marquis de Lafayette
Marquis de Lafayette
  • Born: September 6, 1757
  • Died: May 20, 1834
  • Nationality: French
  • Profession: Revolutionary

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, known in the United States as Lafayette (/ˌlɑːfiːˈɛt, ˌlæf-/, French: [lafajɛt]), was a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, including the siege of Yorktown. After returning to France, he was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830. He has been considered a national hero in both countries.