"It is startling, perhaps, to consider that the continuance of slavery was so thoroughly interwoven with the politics of freedom. In the course of my research for this book, I have come to believe that the American Republic would not have survived its early years- would not have made it to the war of 1812- if it had not been fueled and funded by two profound acts of ethnic violence: the establishment of slavery and the annexation of Native American land, both of which practices played a major part in the inception and conduct of the Revolution. The freedom- economic, social, and intellectual- enjoyed by the vocal and literate elite of the early Republic would have been impossible if it had not been for the enslavement, displacement, and destruction of others."

-from the Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II- The Kingdom on the Waves, author's note, page 564