Dec 01
"[I] will save the nation from the rule of demagogues who by intrigue are, and have been attempting to cheat the people out of their constitutional rights, by a caucus of congressional members."
Dec 31
"Many of the stores destroyed in the fire were new, with iron shutters and doors and copper roofs. When they burned, witnesses described appearance of immense iron furnaces in full blast. The heat at times melted the copper roofing, and the liquid ran off in great drops. A gale blew towards the East River. Wall after wall was heard tumbling like an avalanche. Fiery tongues of flame leaped from roof and windows along whole streets, and seemed to be making angry dashes at each other. The water of the bay looked like a vast sea of blood. The bells rang for a while and then ceased. Both sides of Pearl Street and Hanover Square were at the same instant engulfed in flames."
"In this midst of this terrible visitation, however, it is consolatory to see the elastic energy of the people. Instead of wasting their time in despondency over this frightful desolation, the whole population seems to on the alert to repair the mischief."
Dec 02
"The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
"We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."
Dec 03
"We are now about to assume the management of the editorial department of a newspaper, devoted to the cause of Liberty, Humanity and Progress. The position is one which, with the purest motives, we have long desired to occupy. It has long been our anxious wish to see, in this slave-holding, slave-trading, and Negro-hating land, a printing-press and paper, permanently established, under the complete control and direction of the immediate victims of slavery and oppression." Read more at http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/support15.html.
Dec 04
"Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality."
Dec 05
"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."
Dec 06
"It is with no feeling of pride, as an American, that the remark be made, that, on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe, there are existing upward of one
hundred and thirty of these lighthouses of the skies; while throughout the whole
American hemispphere, there is not one."
Dec 07
"Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe."
Dec 07
Dec 08
"Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go."
Dec 09
"Newspapers, from their cheapness, and the frequency and rapidity of their circulation, may, in America, assume an eminent rank in the catalog of useful publications in a great degree, supersede the use of Magazines and Pamphlets. The public mind in America, roused by the magnitude of political events and impatient of delay, cannot wait for monthly intelligence. Daily or at furthest weekly communications are found necessary to gratify public curiosity."
Dec 10
"Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition."
Dec 11
"The pilgrims on the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. To my knowledge, they didn't wait around for a return trip to Europe. You settle some place with a purpose. If you don't want to do that, stay home. You avoid an awful lot of risks by not venturing outward."
Dec 12
"Through uninterrupted diligence you will receive Mozart's spirit through Haydn's hands."
Dec 13
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Dec 14
"The Wilderness Road, though rough, muddy and difficult as compared with present day highways, was nevertheless immediately popular. In an Act approved March 1, 1797, the Legislature provided for opening a road from near Milford [then the county seat] in the county of Madison, the nearest and best way that can be had, to intersect the road opened last summer under the before recited act..."
Dec 15
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Dec 16
"Comtemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen and then ask yourself, What should be the reward of such sacrifices... If ye love wealth better than freedom, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
Dec 17
“I confide to your care my beloved children, the most precious jewels I can leave you. The great monarch beyond the ocean will interest himself to see that they come into their inheritance, if you present before him their just claims. I know your master will do this, if for no other reason, then for kindness I have shown the Spaniards though it has occasioned my ruin. For all my misfortunes, Maliche, I bear you ill will.”
Dec 18
"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Dec 19
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
Dec 20
"What's more New York than the Great White Way, which is Broadway. Broadway without being ablaze with light would not be Broadway."
Dec 21
"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a ban of brethren, united to each other by the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."
Dec 22
"On the impressment of our seamen, our remonstrances have never been intermitted. A hope existed at one moment, of an arrangement which might have been submitted to, but it soon passed away, and the practice, though relaxed at times in the distance seas, has been constantly pursued in those in our neighbourhood."
Dec 23
“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
Dec 24
“In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.”
Dec 25
"Having never seen so large a substance extracted, nor heard of an attempt, or success attending any operation such as this required, I gave to the unhappy woman information of her dangerous situation. The tumor appeared full in view, but was so large we could not take it away entire. We took out 15 pounds of a dirty, gelatinous looking substance. After which we cut through the fallopian tube, and extracted the sac, which weighed seven pounds and one half. In five days I visited her, and much to my astonishment found her making up her bed.
"How is it that I have been so peculiarly fortunate with my patients of this description?, I know not; for, from all the information I can obtain, there has not one individual survived who has been operated, on elsewhere, for diseased ovaria. I can only say that the blessing of God has rested on my efforts."
Dec 25
On the morning of December 25, George Washington ordered his army to prepare three days' food, and issued orders that every soldier be outfitted with fresh flints for their muskets. He was also somewhat worried by intelligence reports that the British were planning their own crossing once the Delaware was frozen over.
At 4 pm Washington's army turned out for its evening parade, where the troops were issued ammunition, and even the officers and musicians were ordered to carry muskets. They were told that they were departing on a secret mission. Marching eight abreast in close formations, and ordered to be as quiet as possible, they left the camp for McKonkey's Ferry.
Washington's plan required the crossing to begin as soon as it was dark enough to conceal their movements on the river, but most of the troops did not reach the crossing point until about 6 pm, about ninety minutes after sunset.
The weather got progressively worse, turning from drizzle to rain to sleet and snow. "It blew a hurricane," recalled one soldier.
Dec 26
"Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton."
Dec 27
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."
Dec 28
“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”
Dec 29
"We, the great mass of the people think only of the love we have to our land for...we do love the land where we were brought up. We will never let our hold to this land go to let it go it will be like throwing away our mother that gave us birth.
"Inclination to remove from this land has no abiding place in our hearts, and when we move we shall move by the course of nature to sleep under this ground which the Great Spirit gave to our ancestors and which now covers them in their undisturbed peace."
Dec 30
"Every side of a coin has another side."
Dec 31
"We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
