Quotes on American History

English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.

We've been a free people living under the law, with faith in our Maker and in our future. I've said before that the most sublime picture in American history is of George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know that it's not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness; we must also seek help from God, our Father and Preserver.

The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.

The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.

Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.