180 Quotes by Jill Lepore

In one of the most wrenching tragedies in American history – a chronicle not lacking for tragedy – the Confederacy had lost the war, but it had won the peace.

Thirteen million new homes were built in the United States during the 1950s; eleven million of them were built in the suburbs. Eighty-three percent of all population growth in the 1950s took place in the suburbs. For every two blacks who moved to the cities, three whites moved out. The postwar racial order created a segregated landscape: black cities, white suburbs.

Right wrongs no man.

The only way to answer the question “Are things getting better or are they getting worse?” is to discover whether modern man knows more or is wiser than his ancestors, Weaver argued. And his answer to this question was no. With the scientific revolution, “facts” – particular explanations for how the world works – had replaced “truth” – a general understanding of the meaning of its existence.

In 1937, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black would observe, with grim dismay, that, over the course of fifty years, “only one half of one percent of the Fourteenth Amendment cases that came before the court had anything to do with African Americans or former slaves, while over half of the cases were about protecting the rights of corporations.

Hours before Washington’s inauguration was scheduled to take place, a special congressional committee decided that it might be fitting for the president to rest his hand on a Bible while taking the oath of office. Unfortunately, no one in Federal Hall had a copy of the Bible on hand. There followed a mad dash to find one.

History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what do do next, which is why it’s worth trying to know where things come from.

Liberalism is still in there. The trick is getting it out. There’s only one way to do that. It requires grabbing and holding onto a very good idea: that all people are equal and endowed from birth with inalienable rights and entitled to equal treatment, guaranteed by a nation of laws. This requires making the case for the nation.

The last peace had created the conditions for the next war. Out of want came fear, out of fear came fury.