Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary January 10 with 38 percent of the vote, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul placed a strong second with 23 percent (with 78 percent of the precincts reporting).
“The president has run out of ideas,” Romney said in his victory speech. “Now he’s running out of excuses. And tonight, we’re asking the good people of South Carolina to join the citizens of New Hampshire and make 2012 the year he runs out of time.”
“He had a victory,” Ron Paul said of Romney. Regarding his own second-place showing, Paul said, “We had a victory for the cause of liberty tonight.”
Paul’s speech had a different substance than Romney’s partisan speech. Paul focused upon ideas in his talk. “I sort of have to chuckle when they describe you and me as being dangerous,” Paul told his supporters. “We are dangerous to the status quo in this country. And we will remain a danger to the Federal Reserve system as well.” The mostly young audience broke out in loud chants of “End the Fed! End the Fed!” Paul had predicted the housing and financial crisis as early as 2001, and warned that the United States was currently in the midst of a currency crisis.
“I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great questions with which the AngloSaxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to “old Master” and “old Missus,” and to their children, which they found it hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases nearly a half century, and it was no light thing to think of parting. Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began to wander from the slave quarters back to the “big house” to have a whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future. “
"I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great questions with which the AngloSaxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old Master" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases nearly a half century, and it was no light thing to think of parting. Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future. "