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Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Thursday called for a portrait of the late Illinois U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas in the Capitol’s House chamber to be removed and replaced with one of former President Barack Obama, whom he called “a more fitting representation of the modern-day Democratic Party.” Madigan also called for the removal of statues on the Illinois State Capitol grounds of both Douglas, a defender of slavery, and Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant governor and a slaveholder. The speaker’s call to take down the portrait and statues is part of a movement to remove memorials of historical figures...

The Boston Arts Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to remove a public monument depicting President Abraham Lincoln standing before a freed slave. The Emancipation Memorial in Park Square — a replica of the original standing in Washington, D.C. — will be taken down with an art conservator “to document, recommend how the bronze statue is removed, supervise its removal and placement into temporary storage,” the motion reads. “As we continue our work to make Boston a more equitable and just city, it’s important that we look at the stories being told by the public art in all our neighborhoods,” Boston...

Some University of Wisconsin-Madison students of color want the university to remove one of its most iconic landmarks, a statue of Abraham Lincoln, because of what they see as the former president’s anti-indigenous and anti-Black history despite Lincoln’s legacy of ending slavery in the U.S. Two student organizations, the Black Student Union and the Student Inclusion Coalition, pushed for the statue’s removal in early June, days after George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody and protests erupted nationally over racial injustice.

Our history and our heritage are being shoved by rioters, looters, and anarchists down the memory hole. This is year zero on their calendar. Everything that came before and every struggle for freedom and human dignity by patriots of all colors is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is now. The only thing that matters is what they tell you. How we got here and what makes us who and what we are may not be pretty or politically correct but it is important. We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t remember where we’ve been. The canceling of...

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are demanding that the university remove and replace a statue of Abraham Lincoln. "Many UW-Madison students wait to take their picture on the lap of the Abe Lincoln statue atop Bascom Hill when they graduate," a Change.org petition states. "However, few know how this statue got to the top of the hill, and who put it there." "few know how this statue got to the top of the hill, and who put it there"

""I'm here to speak on behalf of the legacy of Charlotte Scott," said Marcia Cole, a member of the Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED) who portrays Scott. FREED is an auxiliary organization of the African American Civil War Museum. "I understand there's a big campaign trying to raise money to either take it down or mend it, and I say 'no' on behalf of Ms. Charlotte," she said. "People tend to think of that figure as being servile but on second look you will see something different, perhaps. That man is not kneeling on two knees with his head bowed....

Under fire from ignorant iconoclasts, the Emancipation Memorial shows a former slave 'exerting his own strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him.' Black Lives Matter Protesters have threatened to tear down the Emancipation Memorial in Washington. District of Columbia Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton also called for the “problematic” statue’s removal from Lincoln Park, alleging the statue fails to note how enslaved African Americans pushed for their emancipation. Norton said former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass “expressed his displeasure” at its unveiling.In truth, Frederick Douglass predicted members of his race looking back at its...

Friends and Fellow-citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lesson of our history in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary spaces over which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note of this occasion; they will think of...

Hundreds of troops with the Washington, D.C., National Guard have mobilized to protect monuments in the nation's capital, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News on Wednesday. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt requested the action earlier this week, as protesters target statues and other historical markers during ongoing demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's police custody death in Minneapolis at the end of May. TRUMP ISSUES WARNING AMID VANDALISM, EFFORT TO TOPPLE ANDREW JACKSON STATUE Protesters on Monday attempted to tear down a statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square by the White House, and defaced it with the...

Attorney General William Barr took his verbal scalpel and shredded the complete “bovine silence” of the media following the “complete collapse” of the attempted coup of President Trump – an attempt that he agreed hasn’t been seen since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Other than that, the interview on (“Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo”) was a complete snore-fest. [snip]Barr:It’s been stunning that what we’ve gotten from the mainstream media is sort bovine silence in the face of the complete collapse of the so called Russiagate scandal, which they did all they could to sensationalize and drive. And it’s like...

Former Vice President Joe Biden did not sponsor or co-sponsor any of the six bills recognizing Juneteenth during his time in the U.S. Senate, though he is now attempting to champion the holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the day that slaves in Galveston, Texas, were informed — on June 19, 1865 — that they had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years before. A search of GovTrack records of congressional bills, which is a complete record of all legislation dating back to 1973 — the year Biden entered the Senate — finds that Biden neither...

Today, First Lady Melania Trump and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, visited the National Archives of the United States to view the Emancipation Proclamation and the Charters of Freedom.  David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States and Maureen MacDonald, Special Assistant to the Archivist, joined Mrs. Trump and Secretary Carson during the tour and provided details on the significance of the National Archives and its historic records.The First Lady and Secretary Carson began their visit in the Rotunda to view the three founding documents of America that constitute the Charters of Freedom: the Declaration of Independence,...

Activists defaced and scaled Abraham Lincoln’s statue in Parliament Square, London, at a Black Lives Matter rally held in defiance of Britain’s anti-coronavirus regulations. Video from protest, estimated to be 15,000-strong at the time of publication, shows the Lincoln statue defaced with the graffiti reading “BLM” and naming George Floyd, Mike Brown, and other individuals said to have been killed wrongfully by the police. One side of Lincoln’s pedestal has also had a banner and several placards duct-taped to it, reading “RACISM IS A PANDEMIC TOO”, “SILENCE IS VIOLENCE”, “BLM”, and “ABOLISH THE POLICE”.

We are studying the Civil War as a family these days, and unlike many other historical events, there is no shortage of good films dealing with the this topic, among them: Glory, Gods and Generals, and Gettysburg. We watched Gettysburg last night. I hadn’t seen it since it was originally released in 1993 when I saw it on the big screen. Since that time, I have visited the battlefield at least twice. The last time was in 2016 with my oldest daughter on our way back from a homeschool conference in Maryland. It was during that visit that we came...

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee is the third Confederate General to surrender their army to Grant.

Abraham Lincoln on Resoluteness: "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

Was Abraham Lincoln a conservative? Some people say right/left distinctions are no longer meaningful. In my own life I was born into a progressive family and absorbed that way of thinking. When I became older, I have learnt quite painfully how important and valuable maintaining western traditions is, when my own rights were trashed by modern misandry, leading me to create this blog: https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2017/11/08/freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity/ Where I write this it is already President Lincoln’s birthday. Who has ever been to Lincoln's birthplace Sinking Spring Farm in Kentucky? Did you learn anything about the man there which came to you from the...

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Abraham Lincoln. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Honest Abe makes his fifth appearance overall on Free Republican quotefalls. Was he the savior of the United States, or did his actions permanently start the trend to go against American Republicanism in general? You decide. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters...

Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich rang in the new year by penning an editorial for a conservative website arguing that current House Democrats who have impeached President Donald Trump also would have tried to impeach Abraham Lincoln. While the piece, titled “Blagojevich: House Democrats Would Have Impeached Lincoln,” does not mention Trump by name, it’s an apparent continuation of his public campaign to win clemency from the Republican president. The Democratic former governor wrote the opinion piece from behind bars in Colorado, where he’s serving a 14-year sentence for public corruption stemming from his attempt to trade Barack Obama’s...