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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Book by Jon Meacham · 2 quotes · America, Freedom, History

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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels Quotes

“I know of no soil better adapted to the growth of reform than American soil,” [Frederick] Douglass said after the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision in 1857. “I know of no country where the conditions for affecting great changes in the settled order of things, for the development of right ideas of liberty and humanity, are more favorable than here in these United States.”

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“Harry Truman—the man who won the four-way 1948 presidential campaign, triumphing over the segregationist Thurmond, the Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace, and the Republican Thomas E. Dewey—once said: “You can’t divide the country up into sections and have one rule for one section and one rule for another, and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices. You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones. You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.”

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Book:The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
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