Free Republic

At the northwest corner of Central Park, construction is under way on Frederick Douglass Circle, a $15.5 million project honoring the escaped slave who became a world-renowned orator and abolitionist. Beneath an eight-foot-tall sculpture of Douglass, the plans call for a huge quilt in granite, an array of squares, a symbol in each, supposedly part of a secret code sewn into family quilts and used along the Underground Railroad to aid slaves. Two plaques would explain this. The only problem: According to many prominent historians, the secret code — the subject of a popular book that has been featured on...

"...The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core,...

The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it...

Student Sues to Pose With Gun in YearbookCONCORD, N.H. — Where other students might pose for their senior yearbook photo with tennis rackets or favorite cars, Blake Douglass (search) wants to be seen with his shotgun.The 17-year-old senior filed a federal lawsuit to force Londonderry High School (search) to allow the photo and give up the policy school officials used to reject it."What they’re doing is basically discriminating based on content or message," said Penny Dean (search), Douglass’ lawyer and a specialist in gun cases. "You can’t do that. You might want to but you can’t — and especially you can’t with...

...a county councilman in Talbot County, (Thomas G.) Duncan has a problem with a statue of Talbot County's most famous resident...Frederick Douglass, being placed on the courthouse lawn in Easton. That honor, Duncan feels, should only be for those who served in the armed forces, even "The Talbot Boys," who fought for the Confederacy..It's at this point that Duncan needs to run it by me again. A statue paying tribute to "The Talbot Boys" stands on the courthouse lawn. They most assuredly did not "serve their country." The country they served was the Confederate States of America - Maryland was...

...Frederick Douglass is still a controversial figure in his native Talbot County. Plans to erect a statue of him in Easton, the county seat, have been stymied...the County Council oppose putting a Douglass memorial on the courthouse green. Because they believe the site should be reserved to honor war dead. A Vietnam War memorial and a tribute to the county's Confederate Army veterans. The existence of that second statue alone gives reason enough for a Douglass tribute. What are Talbot County visitors to think -- that the county more closely sympathizes with the goals of the Confederacy than with the...

Ten American Biographies Everyone Should Read Posted Nov 14, 2003 HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 21 distinguished scholars to help us develop a list of Ten American Biographies Everyone Should Read. We asked them first to nominate biographies or autobiographies of anyone who had been a native-born or naturalized American citizen since 1776. Then they listed their top ten choices from the entire roster of nominated titles. A book received 10 points for each No. 1 vote it received, 9 points for each No. 2 vote, and so on. The title with the highest aggregate score was rated the...

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too ‹ great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and...