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Most history books written by Democrat professors downplay the fact that the Worst President Ever was a Democrat. Did the Democrats nominate him? No, he was the 1864 Republican nominee for vice president.Andrew Johnson – Andrew Jackson Johnson, to be precise – was the only southern Senator not to go with the Confederacy. For being strong on nation security, this hardline Democrat was nominated to be Abraham Lincoln's 1864 running mate. // continued at http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2008/08/andrew-johnson.html

WASHINGTON — Congressional candidate Jack Davis, in a speech earlier this year, warned that increasing immigration from Mexico could lead to a new civil war between northern states and Mexican-influenced Southern states that may want to secede from the United States. “In the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process,” Davis said in the speech. “They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war.” A supporter of one of...

Valdosta State professor pens ‘Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War’ Generations of students have been taught that the South lost the Civil War because of the North’s superior industry and population. A new book suggests another reason: Southerners were largely responsible for defeating the Confederacy. In “Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War” (New Press, $27.95), historian David Williams of Valdosta State University lays out some tradition-upsetting arguments that might make the granite brow of Jefferson Davis crack on Stone Mountain. “With this book,” wrote Publishers Weekly, “the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.”...

--Snip-- On this date: In 1863, Federal batteries and ships began bombarding South Carolina's Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of pounding.

Ever since the document was examined several weeks ago, it's been a mystery. Initially, it appeared to be a reproduction of the terms and conditions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender in Appomattox, Va., in 1865. But staff members of the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum in Center City - who came upon the document while preparing for the museum's relocation - soon noticed pen indentations in the paper, and darker and lighter ink strokes consistent with handwriting. They also found a notation in a 1935 museum inventory identifying the document as an "original." Could this artifact, crudely...

...The decision comes with no guarantee of where or whether the statue might be displayed or how it is interpreted.

In all the talk about reparations one significant fact seems to be consistently overlooked. Over a quarter million Union soldiers willingly and freely surrendered their lives in order to free a slave race whom they did not personally know and to whom they were not indebted -- morally or otherwise. It seems to me the blood of these soldiers is reparation enough to atone for the horrible atrocity of slavery. If not, then perhaps we should discuss war reparations for all those Union families who lost their sons (and daughters) to a war to set others free. That's all. I...

This is particularly relevant since Congressional Democrats spent a whole day passing a resolution - apologizing for slavery and segregation - for something that everyone acknowledges was a crime. All because one of their members is a white guy in a black district in a tough race. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19880631&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

MONROE – At first glance, it’s an unlikely combination. A black family seated under a tent facing a line of Civil War re-enactors, proudly holding Confederate flags and gripping their weapons. But what lies between these two groups is what brought them together: An unmarked grave about to get its due, belonging to a slave who fought for the Confederacy. Weary Clyburn was best friends with his master’s son, Frank. When Frank left the plantation to fight in the Civil War, Clyburn followed him. He fought alongside Frank and even saved his life on two occasions. On July 18, the...

"One in five American adults - 22% - believe that any state or region has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic," a new Middlebury Institute/Zogby International telephone poll shows." "Broken down by race, the highest percentage agreeing with the right to secede was among Hispanics (43%) and African-Americans (40%). Among white respondents, 17% said states or regions should have the right to peaceably secede." "Politically, liberal thinkers were much more likely to favor the right to secession for states and regions, as 32% of mainline liberals agreed with the concept. Among the...

In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama proposed “a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military. This has prompted some in the blogosphere to raise the specter of a huge new domestic paramilitary organization. Others suggest that he may have been talking about our “current non-military security agencies - FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, DHS, etc.” I think that both interpretations are probably wrong. If you listen to the whole speech –- or even the couple minutes before his security force proposal — I think...

One of the unappreciated casualties of the War of 1861, erroneously called a Civil War, was its contribution to the erosion of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. It settled the issue of secession, making it possible for the federal government to increasingly run roughshod over Ninth and 10th Amendment guarantees. A civil war, by the way, is a struggle where two or more parties try to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington wanted to take over London. Both wars are more properly described as wars of...

This past weekend I watched Ken Burns' PBS documentary "The Civil War", and naturally I was left with far more questions than answers. (With the exception of the fact that I was unbelievably impressed with the commentary of the late Shelby Foote) So I compiled a series of them that are probably too wide in scope for one thread, but I will go ahead and ask them anyway. (Note: I'm going to admit a general ignorance on many of the subjects I present here, so if any of you responding find a "well, no $#@$@# Sherlock" question, I apologize in...

Public approval of Congress is so low that a few Republican optimists dream of overcoming the structural factors favoring the Democrats, holding steady or even gaining seats. They are dreaming. America has a proud tradition of disdain for Congress. In the run up to the Civil War, the floor of the US House of Representatives became the very first battlefield as northern and southern members would routinely resort to fisticuffs in order to settle arguments or points of personal honor. It was not unusual for Members to come armed with pistols to the floor, ready and willing to offer satisfaction...

It is fact. It not hyperbole. It is reality. Barack Obama is like Adolf Hitler in that he daily supports killing mortals. These humans are defenseless babies in wombs. When the Supreme Court banned partial-birth abortion, Obama loudly proclaimed to the media that the Court move was "horrific." There is no reason to be polite regarding Obama's stance. One must be morally realistic. That calls for calling Obama what he actually is. He is a murderer. He kills. He is party to those who intentionally slay boys and girls. Therefore, Obama is like unto Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Idi...

Hartford (WTNH) _ A long forgotten flag was discovered at the Connecticut Historical Society and it dates back to the days of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Susan Schoelwer from the Connecticut Historical Society says a handwritten note accompanied the flag inside a simple black box. "You know we have a lot of stuff with a lot of little notes on them. Some of them are true and some of them are not," Susan said. In this case the note claims that the tattered American flag was present at a traumatic event in American history and the hand of a great...

3rd Day- Pickett's Charge On the outskirts of Gettysburg, at 1 p.m., 170 Confederate cannons open fired. The Union was positioned in Cemetery Ridge with only a stonewall for protection. The Union returned fire. About 2:30 p.m. the Federally slowed there rate of fire and fooled the rebels, to believing they were out of ammunition. Gen. Picket went to see Gen. Longstreet and asked, " General shall I advance"? Longstreet responded with his head bowed and raised his hand. The command was given. " Charge the enemy and remember Old Virginia" Picket said as he lead 12,000 rebels toward the...

July 2, 1863 The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000. While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal...

A woolen flag with cotton stars flew the night Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson caught a bullet in the arm -- a quiet witness to one of history's great accidents. You can see it inside a case on the third floor of the N.C. Museum of History, hanging over a Confederate ammunition chest recovered from a Johnston County farm: the flag carried by the regiment that inadvertently shot the man who was arguably the South's No. 2 general. The museum just bought the flag for a price Curator of Military History Tom Belton would describe only as a bargain. Any price...

I told myself I'd limit myself to one vanity post per several hundred comments and threads I'd posted, so I apologize in advance. Currently, I'm doing some summer reading and I'm looking specifically for books on the Civil War/War Between the States--or the "War of Northern Agression" if you're so inclined. While I am for certain that this topic could fill up my living room and perhaps my grandparents' entire house, I'm looking for anything that those of you who argue back and forth on the Civil War threads have read. Thanks in advance.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth ... a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure ... we here resolve that ... this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." –Abraham Lincoln, from The Gettysburg Address "We are all just prisoners here of our...

I've been doing some genealogical research and have traced a couple branches of my family through the Civil War, the Texas War of Independence, and the Revolutionary War. I've also been given the opportunity via some co-workers to join the Sons of the Republic of Texas. I've checked into it, but have also found other historical societies such as the Sons of the Confederacy, and the Sons of the American Revolution. Does anyone out there have any info on these groups as to what it's like to be involved in these groups, and which ones are worth joining?

During the Civil War, when the issues of right and wrong were clear, one of President Lincoln’s appointees, General George McClelland, betrayed him.  The anti-war Democrats to whom McClelland pandered were called “Copperheads.�  They rallied around McClelland to defeat the president politically, when they could not defeat the armies of America militarily.  McClelland had a pretty high opinion of himself.  He knew what Lincoln did not:  That the war come not be won, that giving up and bringing the troops home was the only sensible answer, and that the president was not much of a leader. Democrats overwhelmingly supported this...

WASHINGTON - Nothing salves a party's wounds like winning and nothing picks a party's scab faster than losing. With the likely nominations of Barack Obama by the Democrats and John McCain by the Republicans, one of these two parties is headed for a 2009 crack-up that could prove as messy as any party civil war in recent history. Of the two parties, the frontrunner for this crack-up is the GOP. Well, this is the case at least for now, since they are the underdog in this election. McCain is a godsend to Republicans in some ways because he's uniquely competitive...

This is a great collection of articles on what's going on in Lebanon. I pay particular attention to Michael Totten when it comes to that country's issues.

CHESTER, Va. (May 2) - Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. More than 140...

Virginia Man Killed In Civil War Cannonball Blast May 02, 2008 CHESTER, Va. — Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown. As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring...

The bloodiest and most significant battle of the American Civil War took place in Pennsylvania. At the outset of that conflict, the forces of the North - greater in number and better armed - were regarded as the overwhelming favourites to win the struggle. Yet they were outsmarted by the charismatic General Robert E. Lee, who proved to be more imaginative in the field, inspiring passionate loyalty in his Confederate soldiers. A bemused Abraham Lincoln was reduced to hiring and firing his generals and constantly reshaping his strategy. By July 1863, it seemed as if the Confederates might storm Washington...

LANCASTER [California] - The sharp scent of gunpowder hung in the air with the smoke from a booming cannon shot as a lone trumpeter played the solemn notes of "Taps." This ceremony of remembrance played out twice Saturday afternoon at Lancaster Cemetery... The Civil War mourning ceremony, organized by Friends of the Lancaster Cemetery, honored all five veterans of that war - four Union soldiers and one Confederate - who are buried in the cemetery, but specifically two for whom new grave markers were dedicated. James Madison West was born in Ohio in 1843, and died in Lancaster on Oct....

In an interview with me this morning, senior Hillary adviser Harold Ickes confirmed that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a key topic in discussions with uncommitted super-delegates over whether Obama is electable in a general election. The comments from Ickes, who is Hillary's chief delegate hunter, are to my knowledge the first on-the-record confirmation from a Hillary adviser that the Wright controversy is a subject in conversations between the Hillary campaign and the super-delegates her advisers are trying to win over to Hillary's side. In the wide-ranging interview, Ickes also: * Said that it was possible that Hillary forces on the...

Obama: Clinton 'can run as long as she wants' TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito & David Brown While chatting with reporters in Johnstown today Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton “can run as long as she wants.” Obama went on to say that Clinton should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her as long as they are willing or able. Obama also said the notion that the party is divided is “somewhat overstated.”

In my nightmares, the helicopters still come out of a dark sky, two black spots barely visible against the backdrop of night. Their swirling blades grow louder until they finally touch down on earth and fall silent. They look like giant steel bugs from another planet, bulbous robots with eyes of glass coming to take away their prey. Yes... Hillary Clinton is visiting another small-town in Indiana that most people have ever heard of. We've all heard about the bloody costs of this Democrat Civil War. We see the Victimhood of blacks, women and gays, the Not-Racist Race-Baiting, and the...

In further evidence that the Democratic primary is straining the party, liberal activist organization MoveOn.org is circulating a petition that attacks a group of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) donors, who had “threatened” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for her stance on superdelegates. “This is pretty outrageous: a group of Clinton-supporting big Democratic donors are threatening to stop supporting Democrats in Congress because Nancy Pelosi said that the people, not the superdelegates, should decide the presidential nomination,” said MoveOn, which is backing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in an e-mail to supporters. A group of deep-pocketed donors had, in a letter...

Yesterday the Florida legislature unanimously passed a resolution that apologized to African-Americans for slavery. While I do not object to that, I must confess that I feel absolutely no more guilt for the practice of slavery by people 150 years ago than I do for their burning of witches in Colonial times. Since I am the product of Italian and British immigrants who settled in New England, it is also very unlikely that any of my actual ancestors ever practiced this abominable custom, anyway. What I am, though, is proud that my ancestors in the United States and in Great...

The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. An additional two hundred autographed portraits of army and navy officers, politicians, and cultural figures can be seen in the Civil War photograph album, ca. 1861-65. (James Wadsworth Family Papers). The full album pages are displayed as well as the front and verso of each carte de visite, revealing...

1. She can’t win the nomination without overturning the will of the elected delegates, which will alienate many Democrats. 2. She can’t win the nomination without a bloody convention battle — after which, even if she won, history and many Democrats would cast her as a villain. 3. Catching up in the popular vote is not out of the question — but without re-votes in Florida and Michigan it will be almost as impossible as catching up in elected delegates. 4. Nancy Pelosi and other leading members of Congress don’t think she can win and want her to give up....

(AP) A new controversy flared up in the Democratic presidential race Saturday over remarks by former President Bill Clinton whom Barack Obama's campaign accused of using divisive tactics and unfairly trying to question the Illinois senator's patriotism. Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a co-chair of Obama's campaign, said he was astonished and disappointed by recent comments the former president made while speculating about a general election between Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain. Standing next to Obama on stage at a campaign rally in southern Oregon, the retired Air Force chief of staff repeated Bill Clinton's...

The South Rises Again by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008 Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.” McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy:...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reiterated her position Sunday that superdelegates should reflect the will of voters in the Democratic nominating process — a nod to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), whose campaign is making the same case. “If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party,” Pelosi said in a pretaped interview with ABC’s “This Week.” A pair of Obama surrogates made the same case. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said, “I think the superdelegates, in the end, will ratify the will of the people...

In 1863, Pittsburgh fortified against Confederate army By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW From mid-June through early July of 1863, the citizens of Pittsburgh prepared for an invasion by the Confederate Army under Gen. Robert E. Lee. It marked the only time that Pittsburgh would become militarily involved in the Civil War. The "Emergency of 1863" began when Major Gen. William Brooks, who commanded the U.S Army's Department of the Monongahela in Pittsburgh, received a dispatch June 11 that outlined a probable invasion of the city. Since the start of the Civil War, there was always uneasiness that Pittsburgh, known as the...

REBELS IN ALCANIZ, 45 MILES FROM SEA; AMERICANS IN TRAP Foreign Division Reported Captured in Insurgent Drive to Split Loyalist Spain VICTORY FOR EQUIPMENT Tanks and Planes Blast Way With Little Actual Contact Between Two Armies By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. BARCELONA, Spain, March 14. – The Spanish Government Army is fighting with its back to the wall. Alcaniz, one of two keys to Aragon – the other being Caspe – fell into Insurgent hands today. Government forces are trying to re-form their lines along the heights behind the city. The finest units of...

Halt the political hara-kiri By James Carville Published: March 13 2008 19:03 | Last updated: March 13 2008 19:03 In this, the most fascinating and longest-running Democratic primary process of our time, we were presented with a silly moment that unfortunately is all too reflective of modern American culture. Consider the case of one Samantha Power. Ms Power, a Pulitzer prize-winning author, professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, was forced to resign after she referred to Hillary Clinton (whom I admire and am supporting) as a “monster”. She...

It’s alive! We thought it might be over but some of us never dared fully believe it. Last week was like one of those moments in a horror movie when the worst terror recedes, the screen goes blank and then reopens on green fields or a lover’s tender embrace. Drained but still naive audiences breathe a collective sigh of relief. The plot twists have all been resolved; the threat is gone; the quiet spreads. And then . . . Put your own movie analogy in here. Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction – whoosh! she’s back at your...

Read all about it at the link, details to follow....

At the outbreak of the War Between the States, a group of young men who were students at Washington College formed a military company that eventually would become part of the legendary "Stonewall Brigade."

Every rebel newspaper in the South, every Tory newspaper in England, every Imperial newspaper in France, expresses a hope for the election of McCLELLAN. No Copperhead newspaper can deny this fact. Every new mail brings a new exhibition of it.

A man in his 50s died this afternoon in an explosion at a house in Chester caused by what appeared to be a Civil War ordnance, police said. No other information about the victim was immediately available.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may be competing in the South Carolina Democratic Primary Saturday, but they're also vying for the top prize in another contest: The Oppression Sweepstakes. That's how Michael Jelani Cobb, an African-American historian, describes the surge of venom that recently erupted between the Clinton and Obama camps. The sweepstakes kicks in when two excluded groups find themselves competing for the same prize. He says that took place in the 19th century when the abolitionist, Frederick Douglass and his ally, women's rights' activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued over what group should first be...

Uncle Tomisms Bethany Stotts, January 15, 2008 Uncle Tom was commonly used as a pejorative insult during the civil rights movement, denoting an African American who had betrayed his own kind in favor of stability, argued Professor Kim Wallace-Sanders at the 2007 Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention. She said, “During the civil rights movement, to be called an Uncle Tom was perhaps the most severe insult [one] could receive from a fellow African American, with the connotative derogatory shorthand for everyone who had” betrayed the civil rights movement, caving in to white pressure. And so, she argues, the term came...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Music: When Johnny Comes Marching Home) RUSH: We'll start today with the Democrats, ladies and gentlemen. There's an uncivil war brewing on the left. On one side, African-Americans. On the other side, Clinton-Americans. And caught in the middle of this, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Clintons, ladies and gentlemen, plain for all to see, will do or say anything to win. But now the question: Will African-Americans take anything? Amazing to watch this, is it not? Clintonistas are saying about Obama -- and Obama saying about the Clintons -- what they have been saying for...