NYHIST-L Archives

January 1999

NYHIST-L@LISTSERV.NYSED.GOV
Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
Search for Quotation on Property and Political Rights
From:
Hugh Mac Dougall <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
A LISTSERV list for discussions pertaining to New York State history." <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 17:04:36 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (26 lines) 
At the head of Chapter 26 of his novel "The Redskins" (1846 -- about the
New York Anti-Rent Wars), James Fenimore Cooper uses the following
paragraph as an epigraph:

        "If men desire the rights of property, they must take their consequences;
distinction in social classes. Without the rights of property civilization
can hardly exist; while the highest class of improvements is probably the
result of the very social distinctions that so many decry. The great
political problem to be solved, is to ascertain if the social distinctions
that are inseparable from civilization can really exist with perfect
equality in political rights. We are of opinion they can; and as much
condemn him who vainly contends for a visionary and impracticable social
equality, as we do him who would deny to men equal opportunities for
advancement.
                                        Political Essay"

Can anyone identify the quotation?


Hugh C. MacDougall
Secretary/Treasurer
James Fenimore Cooper Society
8 Lake Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326-1016
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://library.cmsu.edu/cooper/cooper.htm>

ATOM RSS1 RSS2