Free Republic

During the Revolutionary War, our new nation faced a financial crisis. The colonies had no money to pay for the war and the prospects of raising funds were dismal, at best. Colonial troops had not been paid the money due them, so protests ensued. Some officers even surrounded the Continental Congress and held it for ransom, trying to get what was promised the troops for years of hardship, struggle and deprivation. Our young country was very near imploding after all the years of bloodshed, sacrifice and valiant commitment to the dream of liberty. Enter Robert Morris: the richest man in...

The University of Miami has now announced a chair for the study of atheism. In another recent story, an atheist group is suing a sheriff because of his pro-God statements on his Facebook page (Constitution.com, 5/19/16). No one can deny the rise of the shrill atheistic voices of our time. But dare I say that the idea of state-sanctioned and in some cases state-mandated atheism is absolutely out of step with the traditions of America. Here are 10 reasons why: 1) At the time of our founding, 99.8% of the population was professing Christians. Ben Franklin, himself a bit of...

Have you ever seen an incredible talent who is destroying himself? An Elvis Presley, a Jimi Hendrix, a John Belushi?  A Marilyn Monroe, a Prince, an Amy Winehouse? What do you think when you look at someone who’s rich, famous, gifted and has the world at his fingertips after he just throws it all away? Well, America is in the same situation. We’re the greatest nation that has ever existed. We saved the world three times; we’ve helped hundreds of millions of people become free; we put a man on the moon and we stand alone with the world’s strongest...

A federal employee of the National Park Service who offers guided tours of Independence Hall in Philadelphia -- the birthplace of the Constitution -- stunned a group of tourists this week by telling them the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were the product of "class elites who were just out to protect their privileged status." Mary A. Hogan, a federal employee making in excess of $95,000 per year in salary and benefits, provided a tour Monday afternoon at Independence Hall laced with factual inaccuracies and disparaging comments about the Founders and the Constitution. Hogan, who goes by the...

Had you been in Philadelphia on Sept. 19, 1796 and picked up a copy of the American Daily Advertiser, you would have discovered a remarkable statement -- not on the front page, but on the second. It was from high-ranking and popular elected official who had no interest in keeping his office. "Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary," he said, "I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it." When this farewell address appeared in what was...

During Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign visit to Liberty University, he told the students that our nation was created on racist principles. Students at a Christian-based university, such as Liberty, do not often hear the founders-as-racists argument. But it is featured at many other universities, as well as primary and secondary schools. Most often, the hate-America teachings are centered on the fact that slavery is a part of our history. What is left untaught is: Slavery was a routine part of human history. Blacks were the last people to be enslaved. Plus, our Founding Fathers struggled mightily over the issue of...

What kind of criticism would prompt a major publisher to withdraw from circulation a New York Times bestseller by a recognized scholar? One would think the objections would have to be weighty and the critics unquestioned experts in the particular field. In the case of "The Jefferson Lies", one would be mistaken to make those assumptions. In 2012, David Barton's popular analysis of Thomas Jefferson was pulled by the book's publisher, Thomas Nelson, based on what appears to have been an academic putsch designed to protect the now popular view of the third president as a secular deist and hypocritical...

In his weekly address released today, President Barack Obama said that Supreme Court Justices are supposed to apply “the principles written into our founding documents.” “The men and women who sit on the Supreme Court safeguard our rights,” Obama said. “They ensure that ours is a system of laws, not of men. And they’re given the essential task of applying the principles written into our founding documents to the most challenging questions of today.” …

There is a line from John Adams of which conservatives, particularly those of a moralistic bent, are fond: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." The surrounding prose is quoted much less frequently, and it is stern stuff dealing with one of Adams’s great fears - one that is particularly relevant to this moment in our history. John Adams hated democracy and he feared what was known in the language of the time as "passion." Adams's famous assessment: "I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run,...

George Washington, our first president, is probably our greatest and most decent statesman. We celebrate Washington's Birthday each February. But March 16th marks the birthday of probably the second-most important and decent American, James Madison. Madison became our fourth president, but his presidency is not the chief source of his greatness. There would have been an entirely different America without Madison's enormous input and foresight at the contentious 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. There were 55 delegates to the convention. Like Madison, some had a formal college education, while others did not. From Madison's notes about the quality of the...

The Founding Fathers vision of a “citizen’s legislature” vanishes when the process of reelection enters the picture How many times over the years have you seen one group or another with a proposal to get Term Limits for Congress enacted? I’d say there were more of those than suggestions for Obama’s Impeachment which should be a slam-dunk. Well, more or not, this one initiated by Americans for Constitutional Liberty is the latest one to cross my desk and while I would like to see a realistic one put out there for a change. All the ones I have seen just...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Or do we? At the end of a long, bitter political year, with a still grimmer one facing us, shall we take a look? The Founding Fathers' abstract commitment to equality -- reinforced by the Gettysburg Address -- vexes and perplexes Americans across the political sphere. We know we're "equal," more or less. But equal on what terms: nature's or the government's? "Equality" takes on the quality that 21st century politicians assign it according to vote tallies, with backing from the media's noisier voices. We hear about...

Many of my columns speak highly of the wisdom of our nation's founders. Every once in a while, I receive an ugly letter sarcastically asking what do I think of their wisdom declaring blacks "three-fifths of a human." It's difficult to tell whether such a question is prompted by ignorance or is the fruit of an ongoing agenda to undermine American greatness. Let's examine some facts about our founders and slavery. At the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, slaves were 40 percent of the population of southern colonies. Apportionment in the House of Representatives and the number of electoral...

Late in the evening on November 4, 2015, Dr. Ben Carson sat down to his computer, as he reportedly does regularly, to answer questions that had been sent to him on Facebook during the day. His November 4 post had the desired effect. With 300,000 likes and 180,000 shares (at this writing), read aloud by major talk show hosts from Rush Limbaugh in Florida to Joe Walsh in Chicago, this post is the dictionary definition of “going viral.” So as a politician, he deserves congratulations; the post was effective. But as an honest statesman, it fell short. The Question of...

My favorites are Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Its not uncommon for a progressive to rattle off the phrase "The Founders could not have foreseen" - and fill in the blank. The Founders couldn't have forseen x, they couldn't have foreseen y, and so it goes. Well, Mr. Progressive they did foresee you and your tyrannical schemes. This is illustrated by James Madison himself, at the Convention on June 26th, 1787: We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to...

When is it OK to break the law? When can you disobey the authorities? Should you be punished for meaning well? Before reflexively answering, let’s imagine some possibilities. Say the government came looking for spies hiding in your house. Is it OK for you to have allowed the spies to hide there? Isn’t it even worse if you cover up by denying the spies are hiding? Should you compound your treason by helping the spies escape? Next hypothetical: Should you disobey a law legitimately enacted and legally upheld by the highest court in the land? Last hypothetical: Do you think...

They all pledged their “lives, fortunes and sacred honors,” and it was more than just an idle boast. The Founding Fathers were committing treason against the most powerful empire that the world to date had ever seen. It was also their Mother Country, to which many of their friends, family, and neighbors were still loyal. And while they certainly, in the words of Patrick Henry, “made the most” of their treason, the idea that they would establish the most free and powerful nation in the history of mankind was not the most likely outcome. So in singling out these 7...

There’s nothing more American than Fourth of July cookouts, fireworks — and political speeches, especially as we enter another presidential campaign season. For politicians, nothing suits the holiday better than invocations of our nation’s Founders. Not all such exclamations are cut from the same red-white-and-blue cloth, however. Pay close attention as the candidates praise the “Spirit of ’76,” and you’ll see that they’re not taking a break from partisan rhetoric, but engaging in politics at its most elemental level. Here’s a guide to some founding-related phrases and what they really mean today. “Founding Fathers” Nothing says “I’m a conservative” more...

This post is a long time in the making, and spurred on by the significance of today's date (July 4th!) and a recent post made by ETL about the Revolutionary War series (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3307499/posts). (I'm a first-time poster of a thread, so hopefully got this down right!) While I’m busy watching the very first episode of this excellent historic series, on this night of July 4th, 2015, as fireworks go off in the distance, and seeing graphical representations of events leading up to our own Revolutionary War (such as the turning of Franklin’s political sensibilities toward the American cause while in...