“
Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois)
“
Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.
”
”
E.M. Forster (The Machine Stops)
“
My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger" - Billy Connolly
”
”
Sherry Marie Gallagher (Boulder Blues: A Tale of the Colorado Counterculture)
“
Is any thing worth it? This fearful sacrifice—this awful penalty we pay for war? —Mary Boykin Chesnut, journal, July 26, 1864
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
I'm tired of being scared, and I know you are too. Not that there isn't alot to be scared of in this world today, between the non-stop headlines about wars and nuclear power plants and terrorists and assasinations and civil unrest and economic uncertainty and political doublespeak and insane weather and an environment that's becoming unhealthier by the day. But a point comes when it's too much to deal with, and thinking about it accomplishes nothing more than sending you to bed with a cold cloth on your head.
”
”
Sylvia Browne (End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World)
“
When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.
[Alexander H. Stephens, Letter to Abraham Lincoln, December 30, 1860]
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Do they think that, if left to our own devices, we’d all park on zebra crossings for a year? If they do, it means they don’t trust us. And if they don’t trust us, then the relationship has broken down and it’s time for some civil unrest.
”
”
Jeremy Clarkson (Is It Really Too Much To Ask? (World According to Clarkson, #5))
“
South Carolina is too small for a Republic, and too big for an insane asylum.
[James L. Petigru (1789-1863), following the state's vote to secede from the Union in 1860]
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass.
”
”
Michael Connelly (Angels Flight (Harry Bosch, #6; Harry Bosch Universe, #8))
“
Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.’
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Lincoln said that elections in America were like “ ‘big boils’—they caused a great deal of pain before they came to a head, but after the trouble was over the body was in better health than before.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
the crux of the crisis was in fact slavery. This was obvious to all at the time, if not to members of a certain school of twentieth-century historiography who sought to cast the conflict in the bloodless terms of states’ rights.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Like men, [women] know how to love freedom, even though they do not share in all its advantages, and, in republics, they have often sacrificed themselves in its cause: they have shown the virtues of true citizens whenever chance or civil unrest have brought them onto a stage which male pride and tyranny have generally prevented them from mounting.
”
”
Nicolas de Condorcet (Political Writings)
“
Smear extremist labels around like ketchup and your country will soon witness bloodshed.
”
”
Criss Jami
“
negotiation is impossible.” With a surprising display of backbone, the president declared: “This I cannot do; this I will not do.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
You don't need to leverage natural disasters. You don't need to capitalize on civil unrest. You need to be human. It's not always about business.
”
”
Scott Stratten (UnSelling: The New Customer Experience)
“
The pandemic has been the catalyst of political and civil unrest.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
And even more bewildering, what malignant magic brought Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line to the point where they could actually imagine the wholesale killing of one another?
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
In aiming the first gun fired against the rebellion I had no feeling of self-reproach,” he wrote, “for I fully believed that the contest was inevitable, and was not of our seeking.” As Doubleday saw it, he was fighting for the survival of the United States. “The only alternative was to submit to a powerful oligarchy who were determined to make freedom forever subordinate to slavery.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
And I maintain, Detective Halse,” said Inspector Fry doggedly, “that the civil unrest which allowing this message to remain in view would foment is against the principles of conscience and of British decency. Are you against the principles of British decency, Detective?
”
”
Lyndsay Faye (Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson)
“
I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021,
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
In 1860, the South as a whole had 3.95 million slaves.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Lincoln on a sofa was like a ship's mast on a barstool, poised in an uneasy equilibrium between relaxation and structural collapse.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
The two had dinner. What else transpired has been lost between the sheets of history. She remained at the fort until four o’clock.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Stephens warned, “When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Party malice’ and not ‘public good
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
The Democratic Party must be permanently dislodged from the government. The reason is, that the Democratic Party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
When men come under the influence of fanaticism,
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
the Democratic Party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Lincoln’s charming misspellings remain unaltered.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
The pandemic has created a massive burden on the tax payer.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
Lighting: a hundred Watts
Detroit, Newark and New York
Screeching nerves, exploding minds
lives tied to
a policeman's whistle
a welfare worker's doorbell
finger
”
”
Maya Angelou (A Song Flung Up to Heaven)
“
Lincoln said. "Let us believe, as some poet has expressed it:- "'Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.'" p233
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
I have never seen sheep kill sheep, but wolves? We have civil unrest in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt, Occupied Judea…everywhere. Where the creed of the wolf thrives, everyone dies. The sheep are not the only ones dying—the wolves eat the sheep, but they are also killing each other without mercy.
”
”
Walid Shoebat (God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible)
“
Just us and the blues kneeling on a neck
with the full weight of a man in blue.
Eight minutes and forty-six seconds.
In extremis, I can’t breathe gives way
to asphyxiation, to giving up this world,
and then mama, called to, a call
to protest, fire, glass, say their names, say
their names, white silence equals violence,
the violence of again, a militarized police
force teargassing, bullets ricochet, and civil
unrest taking it, burning it down. Whatever
contracts keep us social compel us now
to disorder the disorder. Peace. We’re out
to repair the future.
”
”
Claudia Rankine
“
Lincoln said that elections in America were like “ ‘big boils’—they caused a great deal of pain before they came to a head, but after the trouble was over the body was in better health than before
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Lincoln would later incorporate in his address: “Americans, all, we are not enemies, but friends—We have sacred ties of affection which, though strained by passions, let us hope can never be broken.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
when the country lurched toward catastrophe, propelled by hubris, duplicity, false honor, and an unsatisfiable craving on the part of certain key actors for personal attention and affirmation. Many voices at
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
He marveled that the South seemed intent on staking its destiny on ground that the rest of the world had abandoned. “Never,” he wrote, “did a people enter a war so utterly destitute of any reason for waging it.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place. As I watched the Capitol assault unfold on camera, I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged. It is unsettling that in 1861 two of the greatest moments of national dread centered on the certification of the Electoral College vote and the presidential inauguration.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
All through the week they sweat and bark in the sun with a slouch hat, shirt sleeves rolled up and on Sundays they dress up in fine clothes, wear a silk hat and gloves.” He told his wife it was “enough to make a horse laugh.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
What, the Great War? in which your great-grandfather, who happened to be my grandfather, was gassed in the trenches not once, but twice? Which meant he and your great-grandmother were very poor, because he was too ill to work and died young? And meant I inherited his weak lungs? Not relevant to us? her mother says. And then the break-up of the Balkans, and the start of the territorial trouble in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the civil unrest in Ireland, and the shifts of power in Russia, and the power shifts in the Ottoman empire, and the bankruptcy, economic catastrophe and social unrest in Germany, all of which played a huge part in the rise of Fascism and in the bringing about of another war in which, as it happens, your own grandmother and grandfather--who happened to be my mother and father--both fought when they were just two or three years older than you? Not relevant? To us?
”
”
Ali Smith
“
If the two Houses refuse to meet at all, or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be?” Lincoln wrote. “I do not think that this counting is constitutionally essential to the election; but how are we to proceed in absence of it?
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
find them always alive and rampant when I go back to semi-village life. For after all, though we live miles apart—everybody flying round on horses or in carriages—it amounts to a village community. Everybody knows exactly where to put the knife.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Buchanan recognized that the rising outcry from the North proscribed his range of options and made his own peaceful exit less and less likely. “If I withdraw Anderson from Sumter,” he said, “I can travel home to Wheatland by the light of my own burning effigies.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
He remained a believer in the power of cotton to solve the South’s ills. “The Abolitionists can only do wanton cruelties inflicting horrid suffering on us to no purpose, for Cotton is King and the African must be a slave, or there’s an end of all things, and soon.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
But you didn’t mention Orrigar I, the first king of the House of Chaldarina. He put an end to years of unrest and civil strife. Neither did you mention Ronnick II, the one who reformed the monetary system and forbade the Great Houses to mint their own coins, thus stabilizing our currency. At the time it saved Ximerion from going bankrupt.”
“I’m sorry. I told you we weren’t big—”
“It’s not that, Hemarchidas. You remembered the fighting kings, those who brought war, destruction and ephemeral glory. Or those who ended tragically. You forgot the wise administrators, those who kept the peace, those who brought prosperity. You needn’t feel embarrassed, though. So did history.”
Hemarchidas looked at his friend as if he saw him for the first time.
“So, all in all, Hemarchidas, I’d rather history forgot me.
”
”
Andrew Ashling
“
But when commerce, manufacturers, the mechanic arts disturbed this condition of things, and amassed wealth that could pretend to more lavish luxury than planting, then came in, I fear, this demon of unrest which has been the utmost sole disturber of the land for years past.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
It is getting to be a great many years since I have ceased to do what I would, and been forced to do what I could, That is the lot of all flesh, I suppose---But oh it would be lovely sometimes to cut duty, and go on a -bust-.
[Varina Davis, Letter to her father William Burr Howell]
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
state senator in Marion County, Florida, had been murdered by his own slaves while lying ill in bed, “his throat cut from ear to ear,” according to one news report. Representative Keitt learned later that his brother’s district had been one of the targets marked on John Brown’s maps.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
I now write this, as a purely private and social letter, to say I shall be much gratified to see you here at your earliest convenience, when and where I can personally testify my appreciation of your services and fidelity; and, perhaps, explain some things on my part, which you may not have understood.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
When the conversation turned to slavery, it seemed to Russell to slip all tethers to reality. “The gentlemen at table asserted that the white men in the slave States are physically superior to the men in the free States; and indulged in curious theories in morals and physics to which I was a stranger.” —
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
charge: “Invariably some sleeping dead head long forgotten or passed over. Young and active spirits ignored. Places for worn out politicians seemed the rule—when our only hope is—to use all the talents God has given us.” She described Governor Pickens as “a great old horse fly buzzing and fuming and fretting.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
I gave the best and all my life to a girdled tree. It was live oak, and was good for any purpose, except for blossom and fruit, and I am not willing for Belle to be content with anything less than the whole of a man's heart.
[Varina Davis, Letter to a friend, advising against his daughter Belle marrying a widower]
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
What the North truly failed to grasp, however, was the degree to which the proslavery writers like James Hammond had succeeded in persuading themselves and their peers that slavery had indeed produced this best of all societies, and that anyone who condemned the institution of slavery slandered the South and the chivalry in particular
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
inauguration is not the most dangerous point for us. Our adversaries have us more clearly at disadvantage, on the second Wednesday of February, when the votes should be officially counted.” Here he referred to the constitutionally mandated final count and certification of the electoral vote, to be conducted in the House on February 13, 1861,
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
These Catholic Irish running from the havoc wreaked by their famine and pouring onto American shores are not like the hard-working Protestant Irish who immigrated in earlier years. This new Catholic crop is rough and uneducated, and they’ll destroy the fabric of this country’s shaky democracy if we let them, especially in these days of Civil War unrest,
”
”
Marie Benedict (Carnegie's Maid)
“
He found Congress seething with sectional malice; it took the House seven weeks to at last elect a speaker. Every debate seemed to turn back to slavery. The mood in both chambers degraded to the point where representatives and senators began carrying guns, prompting Hammond to observe, “The only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
how a man who had sworn to uphold the Constitution, and maintain the laws of the country could, at such a time as that, be receiving the felicitations of a rebel cause…yet so it was, and there they all went, drunk and sober, to call upon James Buchanan at eleven o’clock at night, when he should have been in session with his cabinet, calling out his armies and manning the Navy,
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
After analyzing our current crisis and studying well-established
historical precedents, I must conclude that the global bankers have
only three possible cards left to play.
The first is admitting culpability and working to restore the
American economic engine to its free-market potential. History has
taught us that the ruling class rarely admits error and never concedes
power.
The second is to foment so much civil unrest and fear that the
general population will be clamoring for a global dictator who will
provide them food, shelter, and security in exchange for their individual
freedom and sovereignty. I see the emerging militancy of the
labor union movement playing right into this scenario.
The final play is global conflict where they can try and control
the outcome by means of funding both sides.
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
“
nine, who loved the South and feared for the survival of Southern civilization. In his decision, Taney ruled that Blacks could not be citizens, that slaves were property that could be moved at will, and, further, that Congress could not bar slavery from any territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had already repealed the Missouri Compromise, but Taney’s ruling went a step further and declared that it had been unconstitutional in the first place.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
It is the popular misconception of marriage as a mere social convention or quaint tradition invented by the brain of man which has led to the denigrating of this holy relation, the multiplication of unspeakable immorality, the common unrest between husbands and wives, and the gradual disintegration of society and civilization. For if marriage exists merely by human authority then men and women may do with it or conduct themselves in it as they please. They may redefine it, or they may abandon it altogether. But if marriage is a divine institution, then it is governed by a higher authority. It becomes, then, a matter of obedience, and the conduct of husbands and wives within marriage is a conduct for which they must give their account to God. The original institution of marriage is therefore basic to our understanding of marriage, our estimation of marriage, and our right behavior in marriage.
”
”
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert)
“
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In book form, it sold three hundred thousand copies in just the first three months after its publication. In the North, it confirmed readers’ worst imaginings about the true nature of slavery; in the South, it was spurned as yet another Northern failure to understand how slavery benefited the enslaved themselves by providing for all their needs, every day and every night, all year long, regardless of the nation’s overall economic condition.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Until well into the modern age, Christians had spread legends about Jews poisoning town wells, intentionally spreading the plague, and murdering Christian babies. Now, in the twentieth century, anti-Semites asserted that, wherever Jews were active, they stirred up popular unrest and sowed discord. This flexible stereotype could be used to interpret a variety of unsettling events—major conflicts of interest, market competition, bank failures, inflation, foreign and civil wars, and revolutions—as Jewish machinations.
”
”
Götz Aly (Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust)
“
He would expose, remorselessly, those hypocrites and cynics who publicly denied the catastrophe of climate change while secretly short-selling that very same position and hedging all their bets; the millionaires and billionaires who preached self-reliance while accepting vast handouts in the form of subsidies and easy credit, and who bemoaned red tape while building contractual fortresses to shield their capital from their ex-wives; the tax-dodging economic parasites who treated state treasuries like casinos and dismantled welfare programmes out of spite, who secured immensely lucrative state contracts through illegitimate back channels and grubby, endlessly revolving doors, who eroded civil standards, who demolished social norms, and whose obscene fortunes had been made, in every case, on the back of institutions built with public funding, enriched by public patronage, and rightfully belonging to the public, most notably, the fucking Internet; the confirmed sociopaths who were literally vampiric with their regular transfusions of younger, healthier blood; the cancerous polluters who consumed more, and burned more, and wasted more than half the world’s population put together; the crypto-fascist dirty tricksters who pretended to be populists while defrauding and despising the people, who lied with impunity, who stole with impunity, who murdered with impunity, who invented scapegoats, who incited suicides, who encouraged violence and provoked unrest, and who then retreated into a private sphere of luxury so well insulated from the lives of ordinary people, and so well defended against them, that it basically amounted to a form of secession.
”
”
Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood)
“
I fear nothing, care for nothing, but another disgraceful back-down of the Free States,” he told Lincoln. “That is the only real danger. Let the Union slide—it may be reconstructed; let Presidents be assassinated—we can elect more; let the Republicans be defeated and crushed—we shall rise again; but another nasty compromise, whereby everything is conceded and nothing secured will so thoroughly disgrace and humiliate us that we can never again raise our heads, and this nation becomes a second edition of the Barbary States as they were sixty years ago.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
On November 22, 1860, James Clement Furman, a prominent Baptist minister and first president of Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, published an open letter that encapsulated the South’s great abiding fear of what would happen if slavery were abolished. “Then every negro in South Carolina and every other Southern State will be his own master; nay, more than that, will be the equal of every one of you.” Another Southern orator, quoted in the New York Herald, issued an even more vivid warning. “What will you do with these people? Will you allow them to sit at your own table, marry your daughters, govern your States, sit in your halls of Congress and perhaps be president of the United States?
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
At length Lincoln climbed onto the end platform of a train composed just for this first leg of his journey, a small but cheery “Special” with a locomotive and wood-filled tender, baggage car, and a single bright-yellow passenger car. The locomotive was a tried-and-true 4-4-0—four unpowered small wheels on a guide “bogie” up front, four giant fifty-four-inch-diameter drive wheels under the cab and body—built by the Hinkley Locomotive Works of Boston, and, per custom, given a name: “L. M.Wiley.” Whether Lincoln knew it at the time or not, the engine’s namesake, Leroy M. Wiley, sixty-six, a wealthy director of the Great Western Railroad, was a slaveholder from Alabama with plantations in Eufaula and Macon County. He would soon be declared an “alien enemy.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
“
Generation after generation, this lack of institutional support paves the way for alternative, supernaturally-minded group to surge. This pattern of American unrest was also responsible for the rise of cultish movements throughout the 1960s and 70s, when the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the Kennedy assassination knocked US citizens unsteady. At the time, spiritual practice was spiking but the overt Traditional Protestantism was declining so new movements rose to quench that cultural thirst. These included everything from Christian offshoots like Jews for Jesus and Children of God; to eastern-derived fellowships like 3H0 and Shambala Buddhism, to pagan groups like the Covenant of the Goddess and the Church of Aphrodite, to sci-fiesque ones like Scientology and Heaven's Gate. Some scholars refer to this as the fourth great awakening.
”
”
Amanda Montell (Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism)
“
It seems the primary breeding group for what might, in the widest possible sense of the word, be understood as an opposition in the post-totalitarian system is living within the truth. The confrontation between these opposition forces and the powers that be, of course, will obviously take a form essentially different from that typical of an open society or a classical dictatorship. Initially, this confrontation does not take place on the level of real, institutionalized, quantifiable power which relies on the various instruments of power, but on a different level altogether: the level of human consciousness and conscience, the existential level. The effective range of this special power cannot be measured in terms of disciples, voters, or soldiers, because it lies spread out in the fifth column of social consciousness, in the hidden aims of life, in human beings' repressed longing for dignity and fundamental rights, for the realization of their real social and political interests. Its power, therefore does not reside in the strength of definable political or social groups, but chiefly in the strength of a potential, which is hidden throughout the whole of society, including the official power structures of that society. Therefore this power does not rely on soldiers of its own, but on the soldiers of the enemy as it were—that is to say, on everyone who is living within the lie and who may be struck at any moment (in theory, at least) by the force of truth (or who, out of an instinctive desire to protect their position, may at least adapt to that force). It is a bacteriological weapon, so to speak, utilized when conditions are ripe by a single civilian to disarm an entire division. This power does not participate in any direct struggle for power; rather, it makes its influence felt in the obscure arena of being itself. The hidden movements it gives rise to there, however, can issue forth (when, where, under what circumstances, and to what extent are difficult to predict) in something visible: a real political act or event, a social movement, a sudden explosion of civil unrest, a sharp conflict inside an apparently monolithic power structure, or simply an irrepressible transformation in the social and intellectual climate. And since all genuine problems and matters of critical importance are hidden beneath a think crust of lies, it is never quite clear when the proverbial last straw will fall, or what that straw will be. This, too, is why the regime prosecutes, almost as a reflex action preventatively, even the most modest attempts to live within the truth.
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Václav Havel (The Power of the Powerless)
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a like position, can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were assumed; here all my children were born; and here one of them lies buried.” Lincoln would turn fifty-two the next day. The death he referred to was that of his second son, Edward, who had died in 1850 just shy of his fourth birthday, the cause thought to have been tuberculosis. “To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave you; I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington.” Only with God’s guidance and support, the same that “directed and protected” George Washington, would he succeed, he said. “Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To him I commend you all—permit me to ask that with equal security and faith you all will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me.” By this point, witnesses agree, as rain fell and Lincoln visibly struggled with powerful emotions, a veil of eye-glistening sorrow descended over the crowd. “With these few words,” he said, “I must leave you—for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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If administration actions are not to mock its own rhetoric, the President must now take the lead in mobilizing public opinion behind a new resolve to meet the crisis in our cities. He should now put before Congress a National Emergency Public Works and Reconstruction bill aimed at building housing for homeless victims of the riot-torn ghettos, repairing damaged public facilities, and in the process generating maximum employment opportunities for unskilled and semiskilled workers. Such a bill should be the first step in the imperative reconstruction of all our decaying center cities.
Admittedly, the prospects for passage of such a bill in the present Congress are dismal. Congressmen will cry out that the rioters must not be re-warded, thereby further penalizing the very victims of the riots. This, after all, is a Congress capable of defeating a meager $40 million rat extermination program the same week it votes $10 million for an aquarium in the District of Columbia!
But the vindictive racial meanness that has descended upon this Congress, already dominated by the revived coalition of Republicans and Dixiecrats, must be challenged—not accommodated. The President must go directly to the people, as Harry Truman did in 1948. He must go to them, not with slogans, but with a timetable for tearing down every slum in the country.
There can be no further delay. The daydreamers and utopians are not those of us who have prepared massive Freedom Budgets and similar programs. They are the smugly "practical" and myopic philistines in the Congress, the state legislatures, and the city halls who thought they could sit it out. The very practical choice now before them and the American people is whether we shall have a conscious and authentic democratic social revolution or more tragic and futile riots that tear our nation to shreds.
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Bayard Rustin (Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin)
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The liberal element of Whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro, getting the sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, getting the mind of the Negro, and then the Negro sides with the White liberal and the White liberal uses the Negro against the White conservative so that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the White liberal. The worst enemy the Negro has is this White man who runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negroes and calling himself a liberal and it is following these White liberals that has perpetuated the problems that Negroes in America have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, trapped, tricked, deceived by the White liberal then Negroes would get together and solve our own problems. It was the White liberals that come up with the Civil War, supposedly they say, to solve the Negro, the slave question. Lincoln was supposedly a White liberal. When you read the true history of Lincoln, he wasn’t trying to free any slaves, he was trying to save the union. He was trying to save his own party. He was trying to conserve his own power and it was only after he found he couldn’t do it without freeing the slaves that he came up with the Emancipation Proclamation. So, right there you have deceit of White liberals making Negroes think that the Civil War was fought to free them, you have the deceit of White liberals making Negroes think that the Emancipation Proclamation actually freed the Negroes and then when the Negroes got the Civil War and found out they weren’t free, got the Emancipation Proclamation and they found out they still weren’t free, they begin to get dissatisfied and unrest, they come up with the...the same White liberal came up with the 14th Amendment supposedly to solve the problem. This came about, the problem still wasn’t solved, ‘cause to the White liberal it’s only a political trick. Civil War, political trick, Emancipation Proclamation, political trick, 14th Amendment to this raggedy Constitution, a political trick. Then when Negroes begin to develop intellectually again, and realize that their problem still wasn’t solved, and unrest began to increase, the Supreme Court...another so-called political trick...came up with what they call a Supreme Court Desegregation Decision, and they purposely put it in a language...now you know, sir, that these men on the Supreme Court are masters of the King’s English, masters of legal phraseology, and if they wanted a decision that no one could get around, they would have given one but they gave their Supreme Court Desegregation Decision in 1954 purposely in a language, phraseology that enabled all of the crooks in this country to find loopholes in it that would keep them from having to enforce the Supreme Court Desegregation Decision. So that even after the decision was handed down, our problem has still not been solved. And I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the White liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negroes think that the White liberals was going to solve our problem and it is only now that the honorable Elijah Muhammad has come on the scene and is beginning to teach the Black man that our problem will never be solved by the White man that the only way our problem will be solved is when the Black man wakes up, cleans himself up, stands on his own feet, stops begging the White man and takes immediate steps to try and do for ourselves the things that we’ve been waiting for the White man to do for us. Once we do them for ourselves, once we think for ourselves, once we see for ourselves then we’ll be able to solve our own problems and we’ll be recognized as human beings all over this earth.
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Malcolm X
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Although Castine had been overrun by many different nations at various times throughout the years, with frequently shifting boundaries, by the 1760’s Castine had become a permanent settlement. Within 16 years of British rule, the town grew to approximately twenty homes on the south side of the Bagaduce Peninsula.
In 1779, during the “American War of Independence,” the British Royal Navy sent a detachment of troops to Castine. British General Francis McLean entered Castine Harbor and landed troops, renaming the settlement New Ireland. These soldiers captured and held Castine by digging a canal, which cut the town off from the mainland, making it an island. They also built an earthen fortification on the heights of what was the Bagaduce Peninsula, which they named Fort George after the English King.
Since that time, unrest has continued, as the sons of Maine have fought valiantly in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnamese War, and the Middle Eastern Wars.
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Hank Bracker
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Print causes Civil Unrest,— Civil Unrest in any Ship at Sea is intolerable. Coffee as well. Where are newpapers found? In those damnable Whig Coffee-Houses. Eh? A Potion stimulating rebellion and immoderate desires.
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Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon)
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The idea that a story or the mobilization of a bunch of stories is futile flies in the face of everything we now about the history of social movements in the United States. The Labor Movement, the Women's Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Student Movement, the LGBT Movement, the movement to Occupy Wall Street--all of these social transformations & the legislation they inspired were sparked & carried on at particular moments by tales of unrest, resistance & desire that were somehow documented & shared widely.
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Crystal T. Laura (Being Bad: My Baby Brother and the School-to-Prison Pipeline (The Teaching for Social Justice Series))
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In the slum countries of the world today, what are they saying? The rich Americans, they pay attention only to violence- and to money. You don’t care what they say, American? Good for you. Still, they may insist; things are no longer under the old control; you’re not getting it straight, American: your country- it would seem- may well become the target of a world hatred the like of which the easy-going Americans have never dreamed. Neutralists and Pacifists and Unilateralists and that confusing variety of Leftists around the world- all those tens of millions of people, of course they are misguided, absolutely controlled by small conspiratorial groups of trouble-makers, under direct orders from Moscow and Peking. Diabolically omnipotent, it is /they/ who create all this messy unrest. It is /they/ who what given the tens of millions the absurd idea that they shouldn’t want to remain, or to become, the seat of American nuclear bases- those gay little outposts of American civilization. So now they don’t want U-2’s on their territory; so now they want to contract out of the American military machine; they want to be neutral among the crazy big antagonists. And they don’t want their own societies to be militarized.
But take heart, American: you won’t have time to get really bored with your friends abroad: they won’t be your friends much longer. You don’t need /them/; it will all go away; don’t let them confuse you.
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C. Wright Mills
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Located at 6° 17′ 57″ N, 10° 47′ 41″ W, on the Atlantic coast near Cape Mesurado, The city and outlying districts are administered by the Monrovia City Corporation. Monrovia is Liberia’s capitol city and has a population of over a million people. According to the 2008 census Monrovia had a population of 1,010,970. A total of 29% of the total population of Liberia lives in Monrovia, making it the country's most populous city. In mid-1950, when President Tubman’s administration governed the country, it had 250,000 people or an estimated quarter of that number. At that earlier time the minority group of Afro-Americans controlled Liberia but the indigenous tribes having the he majority of the population had very little say in the running of the country. More recently, because of interracial marriages between ethnic Liberians and Lebanese nationals a significant mixed-race population has developed. Because most of these people are merchants they primarily lived in Monrovia. During the civil wars and the ensuing unrest, most American Liberians fled to the United States and other countries. After the restructuring of the Liberian government very few returned to Liberia creating an educational deficit or brain-drain. More recently some are returning to Liberia but not without problems. The primary fear is that they will bring back money earned overseas and will be in a position to recapture economic power and eventually the government.
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Hank Bracker
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The absence of war did not mean that the vacuum would necessarily be replaced by peace. In the no man’s land between Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles, Europe revolted and Britain faced chaos as the civil unrest of wartime spread.
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Philip Hoare (Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century)
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Caple Splicer One, Two and Three, to justify the needs for dealing with civil disturbances: “Phase One: an arrest and shooting provoke crowd unrest and threats against public officials and a riot begins to form. Phase Two: police vehicles are ambushed, various attempted assassinations of public officials occur, destruction and raiding of armories occur, and thousands of people begin to gather and local police loose control. Phase Three: increased movement of rioters and the crowds must be dispersed before they become sympathetic with the rioters. The National Guard and the local police loose control.
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Milton William Cooper (Behold a Pale Horse)
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When the main engines cut off, I felt I was no longer chasing space. I had arrived. I had made it to that spacious habitation, the phrase that came to mind when I first looked down from space and saw our home, the Earth. A reporter asked me after the Atlantis mission what was it like to be up there. I initially spoke about floating and seeing things that weren’t attached to anything in the shuttle floating around us. The talk quickly turned to that magnificent view of Earth. I saw the planet for the first time without borders. I thought about all the places on Earth where there’s unrest and war, and here we were flying above all that, working together as one team to help advance our civilization. That
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Leland Melvin (Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances)
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After January 1, 1959, the Castro Revolution changed the way business was done in Cuba. Abruptly, supplies for Cubana were no longer available, most routes were altered or suspended, and many of the pilots deserted their jobs or were exiled. In May of 1960, the new Castro administration merged all of the existing Cuban airlines and nationalized them under a drastically restructured Cubana management. At the time, many of Cubana’s experienced personnel took advantage of their foreign connections, and left for employment with other airlines.
During the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April of 1961, two of the remaining Cubana DC-3’s were destroyed in the selective bombing of Cuba’s airports. Actually the only civil aviation airport that was proven to be bombed was the Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago de Cuba.
During the following years, the number of hijackings increased and some aircraft were abandoned at American airports, as the flight crews sought asylum in the United States. This corporate instability, as well as political unrest, resulted in a drastic reduction of passengers willing to fly with Cubana. Of course, this resulted in a severe reduction in revenue, making the airline less competitive. The Castro régime reacted by blaming the CIA for many of Cubana’s problems. However, slowly, except to the United States, most of the scheduled flights were restored. Not being able to replace their aging fleet with American manufactured aircraft, they turned to the Soviet Union.
Currently Cubana’s fleet includes Ukrainian designed and built Antonov An-148’s and An-158’s. The Cubana fleet also has Soviet designed and built Illyushin II-96’s and Tupolev TU-204’s built in Kazan, Russia. Despite daunting difficulties, primarily due to the United States’ imposed embargo and the lack of sufficient assistance from Canada, efforts to expand and improve operations during the 1990’s proved successful.
“AeroCaribbean” originally named “Empresa Aero” was established in 1982 to serve as Cuba’s domestic airline. It also supported Cubana’s operations and undertook its maintenance. Today Cubana’s scheduled service includes many Caribbean, European, South and Central American destinations. In North America, the airline flies to Mexico and Canada.
With Cuban tourism increasing, Cubana has positioned itself to be relatively competitive. However much depends on Cuba’s future relations with the United States. The embargo imposed in February of 1962 continues and is the longest on record. However, Cubana has continued to expand, helping to make Cuba one of the most important tourist destinations in Latin America.
A little known fact is that although Cubana, as expected, is wholly owned by the Cuban government, the other Cuban airlines are technically not. Instead, they are held, operated and maintained by the Cuban military, having been created by Raúl Castro during his tenure as the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
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Hank Bracker
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Maybe America just swallowed all of us, including our histories, and spat out whatever it wanted us to remember in the form of something flashy, cinematic, and full of catchy songs. And the rest of us, without that firsthand knowledge of civil unrest and political acts of disobedience, just inhaled what they gave us.
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Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath)
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Bandages and Supplies 50 assorted-size adhesive bandages 1 large trauma dressing 20 sterile dressings, 4x4 inch 20 sterile dressings, 3x3 inch 20 sterile dressings, 2x2 inch 1 roll of waterproof adhesive tape (10 yards x 1 inch) 2 rolls self-adhesive wrap, 1/2 inch 2 rolls self-adhesive wrap, 1 inch 2 rolls self-adhesive wrap, 2 inch » 1 elastic bandage, 3 inch » 1 elastic bandage, 4 inch » 2 triangular cloth bandages » 10 butterfly bandages » 2 eye pads Medications 2 to 4 blood-clotting agents 10 antibiotic ointment packets (approximately 1 gram) 1 tube of hydrocortisone ointment 1 tube of antibiotic ointment 1 tube of burn cream 1 bottle of eye wash 1 bottle of antacid 1 bottle syrup of ipecac (for poisoning) 1 bottle of activated charcoal (for poisoning) 25 antiseptic wipe packets 2 bottles of aspirin or other pain reliever (100 count) 2 to 4 large instant cold compresses 2 to 4 small instant cold packs 1 tube of instant glucose (for diabetics) Equipment 10 pairs of large latex or nonlatex gloves 1 space blanket or rescue blanket 1 pair of chemical goggles 10 N95 dust/mist respirators or medical masks 1 oral thermometer (nonmercury/nonglass) 1 pair of splinter forceps 1 pair of medical scissors 1 magnifying glass 2 large SAM Splints (optional) 1 tourniquet Assorted safety pins Optional Items If Trained to Use 1 CPR mask 1 bag valve mask 1 adjustable cervical spine collar 1 blood pressure cuff and stethoscope or blood pressure device 1 set of disposable oral airways 1 oxygen tank with regulator and non-rebreather mask Suturing kit and sutures Surgical or super glue If you have advanced training, such items as a suturing kit, IV setup, and medical instruments may be added.
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James C. Jones (Total Survival: How to Organize Your Life, Home, Vehicle, and Family for Natural Disasters, Civil Unrest, Financial Meltdowns, Medical Epidemics, and Political Upheaval)
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The FPA, in its 1974 Annual Report, stated that “Studies conducted at Mount Weather involve the control and management of domestic political unrest where there are material shortages (such as food riots) or in strike situations where the FPA determines that there are industrial disruptions and other domestic resource crises.” The report states that the bureaucracy at Mount Weather invokes what it calls “civil crisis management.
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Milton William Cooper (Behold a Pale Horse)
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The shift in the political waters has its own riptide. The fracture on the right, the extremism, will find its voice or voices, and will roll in; then, like a rip current, it will pull away from shore, sucking, and drowning those voices as it does—they will be lost at sea. And while it may appear that we, the party, are lost at sea, the sea level itself will be rising, and the tidal wave, initially imperceptible, will build and slowly roll in. There will be a seamless transition unfolding in the corridors of power, a slow turn to the right that no one sees coming. In the name of what it means to be an American, we will spearhead the development, within the military, and outside it, of separatist soldiers, who believe that they are following the true wishes of their leaders culminating in the erosion of civil liberties under the guise of protection. This combined with the withering of local law enforcement, economic setbacks, and failing infrastructure will become part of a picture that coincides with a period of economic, social, and political unrest; the stabilization in this country will give rise to rogue non-politicians.
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A.M. Homes (The Unfolding)
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it’s fair to say that America is going through rather a turbulent period in its history. The past eighteen months alone have seen roughly three-quarters of a million deaths from contagion, a tanking economy, serious civil unrest around multiple issues dear to various shades of “left” and “right,” a bitterly contested election followed by a not precisely peaceful transfer of power, a migrant crisis at the southern border, mushrooming conspiracy theories, bitter debates around “cancel culture,” growing anxiety about the power of tech giants, and much else besides.
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Stephen Bullivant (Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America)
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At the end of August, less than one month after that story was published, a baby-faced white kid named Kyle Rittenhouse drove from his home in Indiana to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where civil unrest had broken out following the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake. Once there, Rittenhouse shot two people to death and maimed a third. He had taken the trip after a local man created a Facebook event calling for volunteers to “take up arms and defend out [sic] City tonight from the evil thugs.” The post, which was also amplified by radio and other media as it began growing in popularity, had been flagged by Facebook users 455 times. Zuckerberg pronounced the company’s failure to remove the event “an operational mistake.
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Jeff Horwitz (Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets)
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Here lay the greatest of ironies: In thirty-four hours of some of the fiercest bombardment the world had ever seen, no one was killed or even seriously injured, yet this bloodless attack would trigger a war that killed more Americans than any other conflict in the country’s history.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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At one point during the day Lincoln said that elections in America were like “ ‘big boils’—they caused a great deal of pain before they came to a head, but after the trouble was over the body was in better health than before.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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In his letter to Lincoln, Stephens warned, “When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world,” they wrote in their official declaration. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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It is impossible but that woman should feel her own inferiority, and it is right that it should be so.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)
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We are here two races—white and black—now both equally American, holding each other in the closest embrace and utterly unable to extricate ourselves from it. A problem so difficult, so complicated, and so momentous never was placed in charge of any portion of Mankind. And on its solution rests our all.
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Erik Larson (The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War)