State Policy Quotes
Bismarck articulated this throughout the German government and provided cogent reasoning as to why colonialism was a counter-productive policy. History shows him to be prescient about the difficulties of Empire. Nonetheless, in the mad scramble of the European powers for Africa, and the public opinion weighing in cavor of Empire, Germany got sucked in just like the others and Bismarck reluctantly changed his policies. He was right the first time.
This quotation is referred to by these who debunk the myth that everyone was armed in early America. This was so on the frontier where there were potential Indian hostilities but in the rest of the country guns were not a part of everyday life or the culture. Even hunting was not that common an activity as raising cattle and farming was a much more reliable method of assuring a good food supply. The quotation is also often referred to in discussions regarding preparedness. This was an early example where the effect of peace and quiet was to diminish government budgetary commitment to military preparedness. . Floyd was very modern in his economic views, so much so that he, even as a Southern politician, opposed slavery on the grounds that it was economically inefficient and the South would never develop industrially if it had no incentive, as existed in the North and England, to reduce the amount of labor required for economic opportunity. He was right on that point as well.
