Voters, Voting Quotes
Although this is generally attributed to Stalin, there is no writing of his that has the quotation. So some believe that this quotation is apocryphal.
The government relationship to people phrase, although probably Lincoln's most famous, was not totally original. John Adams came close in a 1774 proclamation. As did John Marshall in his McCulloch v. Maryland decision. Daniel Webster's Speech on Foot's Resolution was very close. as was Theodore Parker in 1850 {629578}. There was also Thomas Cooper in 1795. But the earliest appears to be John Wycliffe in 1382 {567292}. It is not known with which of these Lincoln was familiar.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Objectors to the Separation of Church and State Doctrine point to this quotation to justify giving preferences to Christians in majority Christian societies and presumably to prefer Muslims in Islamic nations. Most of the Founding Fathers and most of the general population were on the opposite side of this issue. Hence the First Amendment was one of the conditions for ratification. There has always been a large minority who believe that America was founded by people who were mostly Christian (Protestant) and there is nothing wrong with having America be a Christian nation and preferring Christians for key government positions.
In one of the most famous rebuffs of a politician to his constituents, the congressman sent the following message home to his constituents after receiving instructions from them which he did not care for. He went to Texas where he died defending the Alamo.
Prior to Johnson’s civil rights efforts, the South virtually always voted for Democrats in all elections. The only political competition was for the Democratic Party Primaries. The term “Solid South” meant that it was solid for the Democratic Party. But after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the racist whites who used to be Democrats switched and joined the genuine traditional conservative and created a Republican Southern majority that was as solid for the GOP as the Democrats had ever enjoyed.
Actually the program had been taped earlier and on the day of broadcast, Biti had been arrested in Zimbabwe for ‘treason’ by the vicious dictator, Robert Mugabe, who had been beaten by the opposition in the election for the presidency but refused to relinquish power and in a stunning example of Biti’s point, the Electoral Commission never “officially” released the results showing that Mugabe had been defeated despite his control of all of the media, goon squads, and prohibition, intimidation and murder against opposition. See {619882}.
