Free Republic

The Framers structured the Constitution to lead the new Republic to the ultimate end of slavery but were unable to set a time frame for its abolition. The story comes to us from James Madison’s classic Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.The discussion on slavery at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 centered on two issues: 1. how to count the slaves in the apportionment of members in the popularly elected House of Representatives and; 2) setting an end date for the slave trade.Three distinct groups clashed on the assignment of House...

Our ancestors often believed in fate, and so do I. It was fate one day that brought me to the Fraunces Tavern in New York City. Fate that day that the waiter overheard me talking to my daughter. Fate that that same waiter told me of the museum on the top floor of the Fraunces Tavern. Fate that allowed me fifteen minutes prior to closing to view the museum.In those fifteen minutes I scanned the exhibits and discovered a small posting regarding a declaration signed by 547 Loyalists in late November 1776 which declared their loyalty to the Crown and...

In the June 12th, 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights (DOR) are elements familiar to us all, from the Declaration of Independence, later in the Constitution and the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Yet, there are some fascinating differences. As you read, notice the regular use of the words, “ought,” and “should,” as if the drafters were not entirely confident of their authority. To my initial puzzlement, these soft words are used in sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 14 below. Section 1. The rights that God bestowed upon all men at birth cannot be...

VIRGINIAN PETITION Extracts from the Minutes of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, Wednesday, April 1, 1772. Most gracious Sovereign, We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Burgesses of Virginia, now met in General Assembly, beg leave with all humility to approach your Royal Presence. The many instances of your Majesty's benevolent intentions and most gracious disposition to promote the prosperity and happiness of your subjects in the colonies, encourage us to look up to the Throne, and implore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies...

The Ku Klux Klan was formed as a social club by a group of Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the winter of 1865-66. The group adopted the name Ku Klux Klan from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle, and the English word clan. In the summer of 1867, the Klan became the "Invisible Empire of the South" at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee attended by delegates from former Confederate states. The group was presided over General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is believed to have been the first Grand Wizard -- the title for the head of the organization.

Maintenance complaints and obstacles to a new museum prompted his letter to the Interior Department. In 1976, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sold Valley Forge State Park to the federal government for $1. Now the state may want it back. Angry over inadequate maintenance and the federal government's failure to approve plans for a new museum at Valley Forge National Historical Park, Gov. Rendell wrote to Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week offering a do-over. If the United States "is unwilling or unable to protect and preserve Valley Forge... the commonwealth is prepared to accept that responsibility," Rendell wrote. "One option...

A widely regarded Southern symbol of pride and states' rights is standing in the way of would-be Marines in their quest to serve their country – a Confederate battle flag. Straight out of high school, one 18-year-old Tennessee man was determined to serve his country as a Marine. His friend said he passed the pre-enlistment tests and physical exams and looked forward with excitement to the day he would ship out to boot camp. But there would be no shouting drill instructors, no rigorous physical training and no action-packed stories for the aspiring Marine to share with his family. Shortly...

"Shouldn't presidential candidates and prospective candidates have a firm grasp of American history?" Chris Matthews rhetorically asked on the June 9 "Hardball" before lamenting that Sarah Palin had a penchant for being "painfully wrong" on the subject, citing her recent inartful explanation of the famed midnight ride of Paul Revere. Yet it seems Matthews may have no idea why the British regulars were marching on Lexington and Concord in the first place, as the "Hardball" host scoffed yesterday at Palin making an "NRA ad" out of the historical ride. "Here she is with her follow-up defending her false vision of...

For the most part, I agree with Peter Lawler’s critique of the recent New York Times column by David Brooks on Lincoln and the evangelical abolitionists. But Lawler says one thing that is dead wrong and needs to be corrected. Lawler writes that “Lincoln opposed abolitionism before the Civil War because he believed it was unconstitutional; the Constitution only opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories. Abolitionism was a revolutionary principle, and it could finally only be justified by Lincoln after civil war had begun.” While Lawler is correct in observing that Lincoln was no abolitionist, his argument plays...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Central Florida man's Confederate flag prompted a free-speech battle with his employer, who doesn't want it displayed on company property. The flag is attached to Bobby Tillett's pickup truck, which he drives to work every day, WJXT reported. Because his employer has banned the flag from his parking lot, Tillett is forced to park far from his job. "If I take it down, that means you know the politically correct people would have won, and that's wrong," Bobby Tillett said. "If you believe in something that strong (you) should have no problem whatsoever to fly it."...

RULES FOR RADICALS "The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." p.116 "An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises.... "The job then is getting the people to...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Olaudah Equiano wrote with vivid detail of life as human cargo — the foul smells aboard the slave ship that brought him from West Africa to the New World in the 18th century, the anguished cries of women, the despair of those headed to a life of bondage. The bestselling autobiography he later published is now a key text for scholars studying slavery and its roots in Africa, one of the few first-person accounts by a slave of the brutal cross-Atlantic trip known as the Middle Passage. But part of Equiano's tale may be more fiction...

latest update: Friday, April 18, 2003 at 08:36 AM EDT click photo to enlarge   A Confederate flag adorns a memorial marker placed in remembrance of Isaac Papino, an African American soldier who served in the Confederate army.By MATT MAY, Staff Confederate Memorial Day will honor soldiers who sided against the Union By PETER GUINTA Senior Writer   Most Civil War histories usually ignore the more than 70,000 African-Americans who served with Confederate armies. People know little about them, but in 1861, noted black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, "There are many colored men in the Confederate Army as real soldiers,...

Hi FRiends, I have two brothers who I love very much, they’re young and libertarian Ron Paul supporters, sigh. We get along and I’m hoping that one day they’ll come back to conservatism, but they have bought into a theory that I don’t think makes much sense: Abe Lincoln was a dictator. There are many websites dedicated to this nonsense you can Google "Abe Lincoln dictator" and get some weird stuff, if you want to check it out. I need your help in busting this myth are there any books I can read on this subject to dispel this stuff?...

This is an excerpt, to link you to the internet free and readable copy of: THE COLORED PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WITH SKETCHES OF SEVERAL DISTINGUISHED COLORED PERSONS: TO WHICH IS ADDED A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE Condition and Prospects of Colored Americans By William Cooper Nell Page 5 INTRODUCTION.         THE colored race have been generally considered by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, as deficient in energy and courage. Their virtues have been supposed to be principally negative ones. This little collection of interesting incidents, made by a colored man, will redeem the character of...

Although this column will not appear again for the remainder of the summer, this weekend, in honor of Independence Day, we are running Father Rutler’s column from this time last year. Stephen Decatur's toast, “Right or wrong, our country!” was qualified by the German Catholic immigrant Carl Schurz: “Our country, right or wrong – when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.” In this month of patriotic celebrations, we give thanks for the great blessings enjoyed by our nation at the cost of much sacrifice. “The love and service of one's country follow from the duty...

VENICE, Pa. -- To the 13 families living in this Western Pennsylvania village, Gen. George Washington was an arrogant, elite Virginian who dared to claim ownership of the land where they had built log cabins, grown crops and conducted their lives for nearly 15 years. To them, he was “the first true 1-percenter,” local historian Clayton Kilgore said, recalling Occupy protesters’ description of wealthy Americans. Washington represented everything they despised, according to Kilgore. “These were Scotsmen who identified with the Covenanters, those Gaelic warriors who opposed King Charles’ tax policies,” he said. “They held anything associated with government in utter...

Our opponents in the gun control movement, when they do try to argue down to the philosophical underpinnings of the gun culture in this country, do little more than display their stunning ignorance of history. I’ll ignore for a moment the utterly false notion that self-defense was never mentioned by any of the founders (Adams mentioned it, several founders carried pistols for self-defense, and it’s mentioned in many state analogues to the 2nd Amendment), and concentrate instead of the notion that militia in the colonial or early republic was anything like the top-down organized instrument of state power that our...

The Cato Institute has published an article by its adjunct scholar Tibor R. Machan: "Lincoln, Secession and Slavery." Machan is a distinguished philosopher and a pioneer of the modern libertarian revival. I assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that his views mirror Cato’s on the subject of his essay. Machan argues, in essence, that, while secession is a right consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that right does not extend to cases in which the seceding parties takes slaves with them when they leave. Thus, against the grain of much recent libertarian thought, he...

Lee was an avid reader of Northern newspapers smuggled across the lines. From them he gleaned not only bits of military intelligence but also – and more important in this case – information about Northern politics and the growing disillusionment with the war among Democrats and despair among Republicans. One of Lee’s purposes in the Maryland invasion was to intensify this Northern demoralization in advance of the congressional elections in the fall of 1862. He hoped that Confederate military success would encourage antiwar candidates. If Democrats could gain control of the House, it might cripple the Lincoln administration’s ability to...