143
" They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and all better, and happier together. We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us. —Abraham Lincoln, “Fragments on Government,” 1854 "
― Jill Lepore , These Truths: A History of the United States
145
" They argued, too, against “an unequal and very excessive accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of a few.” Jacksonian democracy distributed political power to the many, but industrialization consolidated economic power in the hands of a few. In Boston, the top 1 percent of the population controlled 10 percent of wealth in 1689, 16 percent in 1771, 33 percent in 1833, and 37 percent in 1848, while the lowest 80 percent of the population controlled 39 percent of the wealth in 1689, 29 percent in 1771, 14 percent in 1833, and a mere 4 percent in 1848. "
― Jill Lepore , These Truths: A History of the United States
146
" The most crucial right established under Magna Carta was the right to a trial by jury. For centuries, guilt or innocence had been determined, across Europe, either by a trial by ordeal—a trial by water, for instance, or a trial by fire—or by trial by combat. Trials by ordeal and combat required neither testimony nor questioning. The outcome was, itself, the evidence, the only admissible form of judicial proof, accepted because it placed judgment in the hands of God. "
― Jill Lepore , These Truths: A History of the United States
158
" I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” Thomas Paine, the spitfire son of an English grocer, wrote in Common Sense, in 1776. Kings have no right to reign, Paine argued, because, if we could trace hereditary monarchy back to its beginnings—“could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise”—we’d find “the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang. "
― Jill Lepore , These Truths: A History of the United States