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Book: Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence
Quotes of Book: Revolutionary Summer: The
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  1. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    the second paragraph of the Declaration that is very much an expression of Jefferson's imagination. It envisions a perfect world, at last bereft of kings, priests, and even government itself. In this never-never land, free individuals interact harmoniously, all forms of political coercion are unnecessary because they have been voluntarily internalized, people pursue their own different versions of happiness without colliding, and some semblance of social equality reigns supreme. As Lincoln recognized, it is an ideal world that can never be reached on this earth, only approached. And each generation had an obligation to move America an increment closer to the full promise, as Lincoln most famously did. The American Dream, then, is the Jeffersonian Dream writ large, embedded in language composed during one of the most crowded and congested moments in American history by an idealistic young man who desperately wished to be somewhere else.
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  2. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    For example, the Continental Congress made a deliberate decision to avoid any consideration of the slavery question, even though most delegates were fully aware that it violated the principles they claimed to be fighting for. Adams is most revealing on this score because, more than anyone else, he articulated the need to defer the full promise of the American Revolution in order to assure a robust consensus on the independence question.
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  3. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    The second is the military narrative of the battles on Long Island and Manhattan, where the British army and navy delivered a series of devastating defeats to an American army of amateurs, but missed whatever chance existed to end it all. The focal point of this story is the Continental Army, and the major actors are George Washington, Nathanael Greene, and the British brothers Richard and William Howe.
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  4. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    The first is the political tale of how thirteen colonies came together and agreed on the decision to secede from the British Empire. Here the center point is the Continental Congress, and the leading players, at least in my version, are John Adams, John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.
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  5. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    One-year enlistment had proven problematic since the troops were scheduled to rotate out of the army just when they had begun to internalize the discipline of military service and became reliable soldiers.
    book-quotedisciplinehabitinternalization

  6. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    Physically as well as psychologically, Dickinson was the opposite of Adams: tall and gaunt, with a somewhat ashen complexion and a deliberate demeanor that conveyed the confidence of his social standing in the Quaker elite and his legal training at the Inns of Court in London.
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  7. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    Pitt and Burke were two of the most eloquent and respected members of Parliament, and taken together, by early 1775, they were warning the British ministry that it was headed toward a war that was unwise, unnecessary, and probably unwinnable.
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  8. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the acknowledged architect of the British victory in the French and Indian War, rose to condemn the decision to militarize the conflict. He recommended the withdrawal from Boston of all British troops, who could only serve as incendiaries for a provocative incident that triggered a war.
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  9. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    But the question made no sense to the bulk of the troops, who regarded instinctive obedience to orders and ready acceptance of subordination within a military hierarchy as infringements on the very liberty they were fighting for. They saw themselves as invincible, not because they were disciplined soldiers like the redcoats but because they were patriotic, liberty-loving men willing to risk their lives for their convictions.
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  10. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    Namely, the very values that the American patriots claimed to be fighting for were incompatible with the disciplined culture required in a professional army. Republics were committed to a core principle of consent, while armies were the institutional embodiments of unthinking obedience and routinized coercion. The very idea of a "standing army" struck most members of the Continental Congress and the state legislatures as a highly dangerous threat to republican principles.
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  11. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    Unquestionably, New York enjoyed enormous strategic significance. As Adams had already apprised Washington, it was "the nexus of the Northern and Southern colonies … the key to the whole Continent, as it is a Passage to Canada, to the Great Lakes, and to all the Indian Nations.
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  12. Joseph J. Ellis _ Revolutionary Summer: The

    the land of opportunity, where credentials mattered less than demonstrated ability.
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