“There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.” James K. Polk Sourced from: http://www.presidential-power.org/quotes-by-presidents/james-polk-quotes.htm, accessed 11/9/2019
Category: HISTORY NUGGETS
History Nugget #19: October 2019
UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, BY THE DELEGATES OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS, IN GENERAL CONVENTION, AT THE TOWN OF WASHINGTON, ON THE SECOND DAY OF MARCH, 1836 When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose…
History Nugget #18: September 2019
Colonization Law State of Coahuila and Texas 1825 Article 1. All Foreigners, who in virtue of the general law, of the 18th August, 1824, which guarantees the security or their persons and property, in the territory of the Mexican Nation, wish to remove to any of the settlements of the state of Coahuila and Texas,…
History Nugget #17: September 2019
Emperor Agustin’s Colonization Law Decree of 1823: Articles 1-4 Article 1. The government of the Mexican nation will protect the liberty, property, and civil rights of all foreigners, who profess the Roman Catholic apostolic religion, the established religion or the empire. Article 2. To facilitate their establishment, the executive will distribute lands to them, under…
History Nugget #16: August 2019
“It would be an idle waste of time to set about refuting the various attacks which have been circulated against me; they are framed in terms well calculated to reflect disgrace upon their authors”: they seem to be inspired by the furies; they breathe only of vengeance and of blood;—and those who wrote them, having…
History Nugget #15: August 2019
“the evils I have caused America, now that the dream has been removed from my eyes and my penitence has left me prostrate in bed: from here I can see, far off, the gallows upon which I shall be executed, and with each moment I breathe out pieces of my soul and feel that, before…
History Nugget #14: June 2019
“It is very easy to put a country into combustion, when it possesses the elements of discord; but the difficulties of its re-organization are infinite” Lorenzo de Zavala From: Henderson, Timothy J. The Mexican Wars for Independence. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.
History Nugget #13: June 2019
“Something was said which drew from General Taylor the expression of views which greatly surprised me. They were to the effect that California and Oregon were too distant to become members of the Union, and it would be better for them to be an independent government. He said that our people would inhabit them and…
History Nugget #12: April 2019
“The drama, indeed the tragedy, of history comes from our understanding of the tension that existed between the conscience wills and intentions of the participants in the past and the underlying conditions that constrained their actions and shaped their future.” Wood, Gordon S. The Purpose of The Past: Reflections on the Uses of History. (New…
History Nugget #11: April 2019
“Rather than trying to understand the past on its own terms, these historians want the past to be immediately relevant and useful; they want to use history to empower people in the present, to help them develop self-identity, or to enable them to break free of that past.” “In their well-intentioned but often crude efforts…
History Present 