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One of my posts on the Civil War just got its 40,000th "view." On December 27, 2011, I posted an article titled The U.S. Constitution and Civil War. It had 42 views that year, 18,728 in 2012 and has had 21,234 so far this year, for a total of 40,004. That amounts to just over thirty percent of the views at my little blog since it began. The progression, suggesting a current level of interest in the Civil War, strikes me as interesting and I thought that maybe others might be similarly interested.For anyone who may be interested, here is...

Born as a symbol of rebellion, the Confederate battle flag retains much of that symbolism to this very day. What is even more intriguing is the fact that the very commissioning of the original Confederate battle flag was itself, an act of rebellion. This little-known part of the flag’s story is told in a fascinating new documentary written and produced by historian Kent Masterson Brown.

This is the untold story of the Union's "hard war" against the people of the Confederacy. Styled the "Black Flag" campaign, it was agreed to by Lincoln in a council with his generals in 1864. Cisco reveals the shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, and even murder of civilians. Carefully researched largely from primary sources, this examination also gives full attention to the suffering of Black victims of Federal brutality.

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon called on U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday to condemn U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's hiring of a staffer with a history of making controversial comments about race. Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication, reported Tuesday that Paul staffer Jack Hunter is a former talk-radio host who called himself the "Southern Avenger" and is a former member of the League of the South, a group that advocates Southern secession. "Senator McConnell likes Republicans to call him leader, and he has made himself heard on every issue he deems of consequence, real...

Just south of Gettysburg, a young soldier named John Nevin leads a Pennsylvania regiment across fields freshly scarred by a horrifically violent, three-day clash between two great armies. Trees are shattered and pocked with holes, crops and orchards mowed down by flying lead, fields trampled by tens of thousands of marching men, fences torn apart. A barn and a house, trapped between the two armies, have burned to the ground. Nevin sees human slaughter on a massive scale, with an estimated 8,000 killed, many as yet unburied. The dead, Nevin writes, are "strewn around in various forms of horror," the...

Citizens of the non-slave-holding States of America, swayed by peaceable motives, I have used all my influence, often thereby endangering my position as the President of the Southern Confederacy, to have the unhappy conflict now existing between my people and yourselves, governed by those-well established international rules, which heretofore have softened the asperities which necessarily are the concomitants of a state of belligerency, but all my efforts in the premises have heretofore been unavailing. Now, therefore, I am compelled e necessitati rei to employ a measure, which most willingly I would have omitted to do, regarding, as I always must,...

The State Legislature of Maryland prepared to vote on secession in 1861 to join the Southern Confederacy but Federal troops were sent to squash their attempt.

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?...

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...

What Americans Used To Know About The Declaration Of Independence Politics / US Politics Jul 04, 2013 - 05:58 AM GMT By: Thomas J DiLorenzo "During the weeks following the [1860] election, [Northern newspaper] editors of all parties assumed that secession as a constitutional right was not in question . . . . On the contrary, the southern claim to a right of peaceable withdrawal was countenanced out of reverence for the natural law principle of government by consent of the governed." - ~ Howard Cecil Perkins, editor, Northern Editorials on Secession, p. 10 The first several generations of Americans...

Almost 150 years before the rail corridor between Toronto and New York City became the centrepiece to an alleged plot by Islamic terrorists to derail a VIA Rail train, it was the staging ground to terrorism of a different kind: An 1864 hatched-in-Canada conspiracy to burn down Manhattan and change the course of the American Civil War. But it would not be sharp-eyed Mounties or an alert Imam that would thwart this 19th century bid at cross-border sabotage — but the “bungling manner” of the Toronto-based men tasked with carrying it out. It was among “the most fiendish and inhuman...

In a move that reminiscent of the tyrannical actions of Abraham Lincoln that led to the War of Northern Aggression, Barack Obama says that he will not wait on states to enforce Obamacare. Instead his administration has announced its intent is to completely disregard the state’s Tenth Amendment rights to nullification of the Obamacare law, via their passed legislation and state constitutions. In fact, his administration has said that in states where they refuse to comply with federal healthcare mandates that agents from the Department of Health and Human Services will assume absolute control over the state’s health insurance industry....

With only a limited theatrical release last week, Steven Spielberg’s latest work of imaginative fiction is scheduled for wide release today. I know Hollywood plays fast and loose with history, but when they go out of their way to get the wallpaper in Lincoln’s office exactly right, and use a recording of his actual watch as the sound effect for his movie watch, but pay little deference to his actual statements or opinions… something must be said. People are seriously calling the Lincoln movie a “much needed civics lesson.” In reality it’s essentially a 2.5 hour courtroom drama about slavery...

In episode 4 on how gun control and socialized medicine leads to genocide, we see in America how medical scince under the influence of liberals was used to promote racism slavery and apartheid here and in South Africa. One of universal healthcare's biggest supporters wasthe Ku Klux Klan which has always been Democratic and Socialistic. Among its more violent and fanatical supporters was former senator and grand cyclops the late Robert Byrd who worked tirelessly to advance universal healthcare in the united states, ushering in a new dark era of socialism.

Well, they’re white kids, except for the one who’s not white. And they’re wearing white. That’s (whiteness x 2) – 1. I call that a formula for racism. What more do they need to do, put on white hoods? Duh! Remember: An accusation of racism is its own proof. The more you protest it, the more real it becomes to those who are more enlightened than you.[ Video]

SNIPPET: "A white supremacist yesterday admitted producing deadly ricin while preparing for acts of terrorism. Ian Davison's home in Myrtle Grove, Burnopfield, Co Durham, was raided by anti-terror officers who found the killer substance in a jam jar in his kitchen. At Newcastle Crown Court he admitted producing a chemical weapon — ricin — and preparing for acts of terrorism." SNIPPET: "He will be sentenced after the trial of his son Nicky Davison (19), who denies two charges of possessing material containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing acts of terrorism. The case will be...

Recently the History Channel proved that it is as snarky as those of who watch it thought. To wit: the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) wanted to run some ads on the History Channel. These ads pointed out the legal basis for secession and, quite accurately, that the North invaded the newly configured Confederacy (Manassas/Bull Run is, after all, in Virginia). Another pointed out that Northern interests essentially ran the Federal government, frequently to the advantage Northern supporters at the expense of the South. The most accurate ad of all simply stated that ANY STATE had...

The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart. The coming year will mark the 150th anniversary of the onset of the conflict, which is usually dated to April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on federal troops occupying Fort Sumter. Union forces surrendered the next day, after 34 hours of shelling.

Event marks war's anniversary CHARLESTON -- The shots are solely verbal -- and expected to remain that way -- but at least one Civil War Sesquicentennial event is triggering conflict. The Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to hold a $100-per-person "Secession Ball" on Dec. 20 in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. It will feature a play highlighting key moments from the signing of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago, an act that severed the state's ties to the Union and put the nation on the path to the Civil War. Jeff Antley, who is organizing the event, said the Secession...