"From the founding of the Rhode Island to the present, Americans have wrestled with the question, in what instance does divine authority negate civil authority? The fact that, under the Constitution, Americans agree on the validity of the question has nit resulted on agreeing on the answer. From prayer in school to the teaching of evolution, to polygamy, same-sex marriage, medical decisions, and even the performance of autopsies, nearly every aspect of life in the United States has confronted questions of divine versus civil authority." (6)

"Eleanor Holmes Norton may or may not eventually succeed in achieving statehood for the District of Columbia. What is certain, however, is that if she does not, others will take up the torch— for it is the same torch that has been carried by every individual in this book. It is a torch that illuminates the lines inside us, that define who we are. The lines on the American map are also our interior portraits. Americans don't always find each other attractive, but each of us desires to be acknowledged, to count. In this nation, that desire is a right. The quest for that right is the torch carried by Eleanor Holmes Norton." (312)