Quote of the Day: More than a Whiskey Rebellion

From one of my favorite books, "O America, When You and I Were Young," by Luigi Barzini: "We all knew we were passengers on history's roller coaster, and that our car was climbing higher and higher. We were also thrilled and proud of the privilege. There were pessimists too, of course. Some of them, wise and dyspeptic, reminded us that what had gone up in the past had, sooner or later, to come down. But, curiously enough, nobody foresaw the catastrophic collapse of everything which would follow in a few weeks, the following October, and the real revolution that would sweep and transform the country, more subversive that the whiskey distillers' occasional riots against revenue men which Jefferson had praised."