Ruby Dee
American actress (1922-2014)
Mercy Otis Warren
American writer
Mercy Otis Warrenwas an American activist poet, playwright, and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the Revolution, she had published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties.
Table of Contents
Occupation
About the Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warrenwas an American activist poet, playwright, and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the Revolution, she had published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties. She was married to James Warren, who was likewise heavily active in the independence movement.
During the debate over the United States Constitution in 1788, she issued a pamphlet, Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, written under the pseudonym “A Columbian Patriot”, that opposed ratification of the document and advocated the inclusion of a Bill of Rights. Observations was long thought to be the work of other writers, most notably Elbridge Gerry. It was not until one of her descendants, Charles Warren, found a reference to it in a 1787 letter to British historian Catharine Macaulay that Warren was accredited authorship. In 1790, she published a collection of poems and plays under her own name, an unusual occurrence for a woman at the time. In 1805, she published one of the earliest histories of the American Revolution, a three-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.
19 Quotes by Mercy Otis Warren
- 1.
The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 2.
The honorable William Penn, late governor of Pennsylvania, was chosen agent to the Court of Britain, and directed to deliver the petition to the King himself and to endeavor by his personal influence to procure a favorable reception to this last address.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 3.
The United States form a young republic, a confederacy which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 4.
On the evening of December 25, General Washington in a most severe season crossed the Delaware with a part of his army, then reduced to less than 2000 men in the whole.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 5.
A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 6.
The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 7.
The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 8.
The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 9.
Democratic principles are the result of equality of condition.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 10.
It may be a mistake, that man, in a state of nature, is more disposed to cruelty than courtesy.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 11.
Public emergencies may require the hand of severity to fall heavily on those who are not personally guilty, but compassion prompts, and ever urges to milder methods.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 12.
General Washington had rather incautiously encamped the bulk of his army on Long Island – a large and plentiful district about two miles from the city of New York.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 13.
A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United STates was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 14.
But truth is most likely to be exhibited by the general sense of contemporaries, when the feelings of the heart can be expressed without suffering itself to be disguised by the prejudices of man.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 15.
The study of the human character opens at once a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 16.
By the Declaration of Independence, dreaded by the foes an for a time doubtfully viewed by many of the friends of America, everything stood on a new and more respectable footing, both with regard to the operations of war or negotiations with foreign powers.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 17.
The defeat of the Americans in Canada and the advantages gained by the British arms in the Jerseys, and indeed for some months in every other quarter, gave to the royal cause an air of triumph.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 18.
Before this address to my countrymen is closed, I beg leave to observe, that as a new century has dawned upon us, the mind is naturally led ot contemplate the great events that have run parallel with and have just closed the last.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer
- 19.
The extraordinary exertions of the colonies, in cooperation with British measures, against the French, in the late war, were acknowledged by the British parliament to be more than adequate to their ability.
Mercy Otis WarrenAmerican writer