“No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.”

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration wa…" by Calvin Coolidge?
Calvin Coolidge photo
Calvin Coolidge 412
American politician, 30th president of the United States (i… 1872–1933

Related quotes

Calvin Coolidge photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“This great maxim of Philosophy he had gathered by the teaching of nature alone: That man was created to work, not to speculate, or feel, or dream.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Reminiscences (1881), referring to his father, James Carlyle.
Sometimes quoted as "Man was created to work, not to speculate, or feel, or dream; Every idle moment is treason". The second of those two clauses in fact comes from Thomas Arnold The Christian Life (1841), Lecture VI.
1880s

Calvin Coolidge photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo

“That no one who had followed the events of the Great War could help realising that while it had resulted in overthrowing the three great monarchies of Europe, its effect on the British Empire had been to strengthen the bonds between king and people and to leave the British Throne more deeply seated in the affections of every class of His Imperial Majesty's subjects.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

Lord Irwin on the occasion of the State Banquet held on the 29th July on his taking over as Viceroy. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 345-46 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt,
As ruler of the state

Henry Clay photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“The most distinguishing feature, or, at least, one of the most distinguishing features, of the great change effected in 1832 was that those who effected it at once abolished all the franchises as ancient as those of the Baronage of England; and, while they abolished them, they offered and proposed no substitute. The discontent upon the subject of representation which afterwards more or less pervaded our society dates from that period, and that discontent, all will admit, has ceased. It was terminated by the Act of Parliamentary Reform of 1867-8. That act was founded on a confidence that the great body of the people of this country were "Conservative". I use the word in its purest and loftiest sense. I mean that the people of England, and especially the working classes of England, are proud of belonging to a great country, and wish to maintain its greatness— that they are proud of belonging to an Imperial country, and are resolved to maintain, if they can, the empire of England— that they believe, on the whole, that the greatness and the empire of England are to be attributed to the ancient institutions of this country… There are people who may be, or who at least affect to be, working men, and who, no doubt, have a certain influence with a certain portion of the metropolitan working class, who talk Jacobinism… I say with confidence that the great body of the working class of England utterly repudiate such sentiments. They have no sympathy with them. They are English to the core. They repudiate cosmopolitan principles. They adhere to national principles. They are for maintaining the greatness of the kingdom and the empire, and they are proud of being subjects of our Sovereign and members of such an Empire. Well, then, as regards the political institutions of this country, the maintenance of which is one of the chief tenets of the Tory party, so far as I can read public opinion, the feeling of the nation is in accordance with the Tory party.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech at banquet of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), cited in "Mr. Disraeli at Sydenham," The Times (25 June 1872), p. 8.
1870s

Related topics