The fact is that America has been at her most prosperous when government and the private sector have been not at war, but in a wary, if often underplayed, alliance. History is unmistakable on this point. – Jon Meacham
The attacks of September 11 – and subsequent acts of terror from London to Madrid to Fort Hood, Texas – embody the most repulsive of human instincts, the will to power at the price of the lives of others. – Jon Meacham
Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power. – Jon Meacham
Barack Obama is many things; among them, he is a tough and even ferocious political warrior. – Jon Meacham
One of the central memories of my childhood is of hunting – not well; I am a terrible shot – quail and dove and grouse on a farm on the Tennessee River. – Jon Meacham
One wonders whether the Obama re-election campaign may be on the right track as it seeks to apply the you-break-it-you-own-it rule to Bush and the American economy. Hardly a day goes by without President Obama or his surrogates arguing that it takes longer than four years to recover from an economic crisis so long in the making. – Jon Meacham
The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. – Jon Meacham
World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man. – Jon Meacham
A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along? – Jon Meacham
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I’ve always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow – with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs. – Jon Meacham
The American Dream may be slipping away. We have overcome such challenges before. To recover the Dream requires knowing where it came from, how it lasted so long and why it matters so much. – Jon Meacham
With the perspective afforded by the passage of time, where does 9/11 rank as a turning point in our national history? For the victims and their families, innocents going about their lives, suddenly and brutally murdered, no other day can ever matter as much. – Jon Meacham
History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us, really, would, looking back, wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other? – Jon Meacham
A globalized world is by now a familiar fact of life. Building walls or moats may sound appealing, but the future belongs to those who tend to their people and then boldly engage the rest of the world, near and far. – Jon Meacham
Environmental concern is a little like dieting or paying off credit-card debt – an episodically terrific idea that burns brightly and then seems to fade when we realize there’s a reason we need to diet or pay down our debt. The reason is that it’s really, really hard, and too many of us in too many spheres of life choose the easy over the hard. – Jon Meacham
The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life. – Jon Meacham
If heaven is understood more as God’s space on earth than as an ethereal region apart from the essential reality we know, then what happens on earth matters even more than we think, for the Christian life becomes a continuation of the unfolding work of Jesus, who will one day return to set the world to rights. – Jon Meacham
In America, now, let us – Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever – fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one’s enemies. A tall order, that – perhaps the tallest of all. – Jon Meacham
Part of what I loved – and love – about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I’m interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I’m interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books. – Jon Meacham
Justified or not, the Supreme Court has a kind of sacred status in American life. For whatever reason, Presidents can safely run against Congress, and vice versa, but I think there is an inherent popular aversion to assaults on the court itself. Perhaps it has to do with an instinctive belief that life needs umpires. – Jon Meacham
The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us is that we are to reach out when our instinct is to pull inward; to give when we want to take; to love when we are inclined to hate; to include when are tempted to exclude. – Jon Meacham
Whether one believes or not, religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics, and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive, it remains vital, inspiring great good and, sometimes, great evil. – Jon Meacham
