Revolutions Need Leaders
Revolutionaries, even.
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of revolution, when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared, when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope, when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1837
Exciting times indeed, when Emerson wrote those words. It was the latter days of the Industrial Revolution, when major advances in mining, agriculture, transportation, textiles, and more were making Europe and America bustling economies.
At the same time, wealthy southerners were still dependent on slaves for their livelihood, and America was coming off of eight years of Andrew Jackson as president (himself a slave holder), who oversaw the Trail of Tears.
If we all had the benefit of H.G. Wells’ contraption and were able to place ourselves in any era of o…
