Free Republic

Even though the Civil War had ended in 1865, political and racial strife continued to northern and southern states. In an attempt to mend the rift, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act in 1867, but many southerners objected to the act saying it favored northern interests and not their own. At the same time, two groups of disenfranchised Americans lobbied for the right to vote – women and blacks. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among the leading women suffragists. The most prominent among the black suffragists was Frederick Douglas. All these groups wanted was the...

Washington March 22 (Special)-The Opposition to the House to grant a pension of $2,000 a year to the widow of General Hancock was strong enough to sustain the demand for a yea and nay vote, which resulted nearly 4 to 1 in favor of the grant. A majority of the negative votes was contributed by Southern and Western Democrats. Although General Hancock was the Democratic nominee for President in 1880, the Southern men do not seem able to forget that he won military distinction in the field in command of Union troops. Some of the opposition was based upon the...

Maryland lawmakers took a step Thursday toward scrubbing references to “Northern scum” and other Civil War-era phrases from the official state song. The Maryland Senate voted 37-8 for the changes, while also recognizing “Maryland, My Maryland” as the state’s historic song. Supporters of the measure, which now goes to the House, said it was a compromise that removes offensive language and recognizes history. …

BURMA—“Help!” Sahale Eubank, 15, screamed as she clung to a rock with one hand and held onto the reins of a panic-eyed horse with the other. River rapids dragged the poor beast toward jagged rocks. David Eubank, 55, dashed into the icy waters without taking off his socks and hiking boots. Father and daughter splashed, grunted, and pulled until the horse—their main porter for baggage stuffed with medical and educational supplies for impoverished villagers—climbed trembling onto the rock. Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a humanitarian aid group, was on a two-day trek through the Karen State mountains...

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Dred Scott case, which had a direct impact on the coming of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s presidency four years later. The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford was one of the most controversial decisions in the court’s history. At the time, the Supreme Court’s majority came from pro-slavery states or had connections to pro-slavery presidents. The case had been in the court system for more than a decade. Scott had been born into slavery in 1795. In subsequent years, he lived in two parts of...

A Civil War era steamship, thought to have been used to break enemy blockades and deliver vital supplies to Confederate forces, has been located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

GETTYSBURG, PA (WHTM/CNN) - Tensions ran high during a Confederate flag rally in Pennsylvania this weekend. A Southern heritage group held what it calls Confederate Flag Day in Gettysburg, PA, but there were plenty of vocal opponents to the event. The flag has 13 stars, three stripes and two very different meanings. The refrain is familiar. Supporters such Mark Landree, executive director of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, says it's about history. Opponents like Christina Hansen only see hate.

If no candidate arrives in Cleveland with a majority of delegates, resulting in a brokered convention, who would be your top choice to be the Republican’s nominee? Take NR’s latest poll and let your voice be heard.

Supporters and opponents of use of the Confederate flag clashed verbally in opposing demonstrations at Gettysburg National Military Park, with tensions high at times. [...] The Sons of Confederate Veterans Gettysburg group said its Confederate Flag Day gathering at the park's Eternal Peace Light Monument was intended to honor Southern ancestors. A counter-demonstration was organized by a Gettysburg College associate professor of history and Africana studies, Scott Hancock, who said he wanted to offer a different perspective on the flag's meaning. ...

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Thursday defended proclaiming April as Confederate Heritage Month in his state. Earlier this month, Bryant quietly issued his proclamation, saying people should "earnestly strive to understand our heritage." A spokesman for the governor said his predecessors from both major parties have made similar proclamations. "Gov. Bryant believes Mississippi's history deserves study and reflection, no matter how unpleasant or complicated parts of it may be," Clay Chandler said. "Like the proclamation says, gaining insight from our mistakes and successes will help us move forward."

Last week, author James Boice interviewed me for a Salon essay about what would happen if the Second Amendment is repealed. With Justice Scalia gone, the vitality of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is in doubt. Here are a handful of quotes from the article. Besides, "if the Second Amendment were repealed tomorrow, very little would actually change right away. Chicago and D.C. might try to reinstitute their handgun ban, but virtually every state constitution carries a provision upholding the right to keep guns," says Josh Blackman, a constitutional law expert at the South Texas College of...

Glenn Beck described Donald Trump as mentally ill and dangerous–on an individual and national scale–in his social media reaction to Saturday’s Republican presidential debate in Greenville, South Carolina. Beck, the nationally syndicated talk radio host and founder of TheBlaze cable network, live tweeted the debate, sharing a dozen messages.

HARRISBURG - Dozens of protesters took a stand against the National Civil War Museum Wednesday, saying that an exhibit currently on display and sponsored by the NRA sends the wrong message to young people. “This public institution is highlighting guns when we in fact are trying to get them off the streets and limit their use,” Homer Floyd, a demonstrator, said. Much of the anger is directed at the display of a pistol used by William Quantrill, a Confederate fighter who captured runaway slaves in Kansas and Missouri. In one such raid during the Civil War, Quantrill and his group...

Abraham Lincoln told an 1864 audience that "the world has never had a good definition of the word 'liberty.'" Different people can define liberty in different, even contradictory ways, so that both sides in a conflict can claim to the mantle of liberty. That was exactly the situation in the Civil War: Slaveholders defined liberty in such a way as to make themselves the guardians of liberty... The South's liberty was the liberty to hold other people as chattel slaves. What the slaveholders called liberty, the North quite rightly called tyranny; namely, the systematic deprivation of the natural rights of...

Harrold, Texas, cattle rancher Ken Aderholt and his family have worked the same land since 1941 – and now the federal government says it never belonged to them. The Bureau of Land Management is taking stock of land along the Red River, which happens to be where the Aderholt family has lived for more than 70 years. The federal government says roughly 600 of the family’s 1,250 acres have always belonged to Uncle Sam. “The BLM is saying we should have never had a deed to it, that Texas should have never produced that deed,” Aderholt told KAUZ-6 Texas Oct....

And why she should listen to Killer Mike. At the the Iowa Democratic forum on Monday night, Hillary Clinton took one of the easiest questions lobbed her way -- Who is your favorite president? -- and blasted it right into the back of her own goal. She did fine with the first part, naming Abraham Lincoln, but then dipped into the history of Reconstruction, bemoaning the vengeful way in which the North targeted the South after Lincoln's assassination. You know, he was willing to reconcile and forgive. And I don't know what our country might have been like had he...

Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most...

Controversy over symbols and relics leftover from the American Civil War is hardly new. Earlier this year editorial and journalistic outrage was directed at supporters of the Confederate battle flag; but now in Minnesota a new angle on Civil War controversy is brewing. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, wants up to six paintings of Civil War events currently displayed in the state Capitol potentially removed to less visible locations. None of the paintings present Confederate forces in a positive light, and none of them feature a Confederate battle flag. In fact, each painting depicts Minnesota soldiers bravely charging into battle...