Free Republic

Would anyone believe that "just voicing your opinion" could land you in prison? Would anyone believe that you could be sleeping soundly in your bed only to be invaded by the local Marshal and his deputies without a warrant? Would anyone believe that you could be transported hundreds of miles away from your home with just the clothes on your back? Want to take a guess as to what country this happened in? The Soviet Union? Nazi, Germany? Guess what, folks? This happened already right here in the United States during Lincoln's regime.American Bastile written by John A. Marshall, originally...

The January 2004 issue of North & South magazine features a debate on the topic, "Lincoln: Savior or Tyrant?" between myself and Professor Gerald Prokopowicz of East Carolina University. The debate occurred online between the two of us, and was then published in North and South. The unscrupulous editor of the magazine, one Keith Poulter, apparently couldn’t resist the cheap shot of inviting Princeton historian James McPherson to add an additional critique of one sentence of my contribution, without offering me the opportunity to respond or without treating my debating partner in the same way by asking someone to critique...

The neocon cabal is beginning to make the case for imprisoning – or possibly executing – members of Congress who oppose the war in Iraq. An example of this development is a December 23 Insight magazine article by senior editor J. Michael Waller entitled "When Does Politics Become Treason?" (Insight is an appendage of the Washington Times, the voice of the Washington, D.C. neocon The neocon cabal is beginning to make the case for imprisoning – or possibly executing – members of Congress who oppose the war in Iraq. An example of this development is a December 23 Insight magazine...

Dust jackets for most books about the American Civil War depict generals, politicians, battle scenes, cavalry charges, cannons[sic] firing, photographs or fields of dead soldiers, or perhaps a battle between ironclads. In contrast our book {[url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2XGHOEK4JT&isbn=0842029613&itm=7]Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War Mark Thornton, Steven E. Woodworth (Editor), Robert B. Ekelund[/url]features a painting by Edgar Degas entitled the "Cotton Exchange" which depicts several calm businessmen and clerks, some of them Degas’s relatives, going about the business of buying and selling cotton at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. The focus of this book is thus on the economic...

Many have no doubt heard of the valor of the Cherokee warriors under the command of Brigadier General Stand Watie in the West and of Thomas’ famous North Carolina Legion in the East during the War for Southern Independence from 1861 to 1865. But why did the Cherokees and their brethren, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws determine to make common cause with the Confederate South against the Northern Union? To know their reasons is very instructive as to the issues underlying that tragic war. Most Americans have been propagandized rather than educated in the causes of the war, all...

Frederick S. Calhoun, the Chief Historian for the United States Marshal’s Service, at the Department of Justice, recently wrote a 200 year history of Federal Marshals, entitled, The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989 (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. 1989). This historical study gives a detailed account of an arrest warrant, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, in the early days of his administration. The warrant was to arrest the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney, following his opinion in the case of Ex parte Merryman (May, 1861). The account is found in the chapter entitled, "Arrest...

In the December 29, 2003, issue of The Weekly Standard, senior editor Andrew Ferguson discusses the controversy surrounding the new Lincoln statue that was erected in Richmond, Virginia, last April. Ferguson makes a weak attempt to appear objective by mentioning a few of the reasons why there were objections to the statue; but upon close reading of his piece it is evident that he fails miserably in explaining to his readers why the Lincoln statue was so controversial. Coming from the premier neocon magazine, it may seem shocking to some that Ferguson actually mentions a few of the well-documented criticisms...

In his book, Making Patriots, Walter Berns of the American Enterprise Institute argues that traditional American individualism, with its emphasis on natural rights to life, liberty, and property, creates a serious dilemma for the state (and hence for neocons): Not enough young people will be willing to sacrifice their lives in the state’s wars. Too concerned with leading independent lives within their own families and communities, America’s youth are not sufficiently keen on dying for "abstract ideas" that are fed to them by propagandists for the state (i.e., Straussians like Berns and his AEI colleagues). For example, Berns says "we...

Whenever Congress wrangles about the Federal budget and deficits, I have the same futile thought: Why don't they just stop spending money unconstitutionally? Two of the biggest items in the budget, for example, are Social Security and Medicare. The U.S. Constitution doesn't authorize either program. Eliminating them would save the taxpayers trillions of dollars. If you read the Constitution, you'll find the legislative powers of Congress carefully enumerated. These powers, fewer than two dozen, don't include welfare spending. But somehow the idea has grown up that the Federal Government has, in addition to its express powers, an indefinite number and...

It has been said that history is created by those who write it rather than those who live it. This is hyperbole, of course, but each historian does indeed write from a particular perspective. So Americans, depending on what schools they attend and which historians they rely on, may have differing views of the same event. Also, many Americans rely on public libraries for their knowledge of history. But, contrary to what many think, the purpose of public libraries is not to present balanced views but to make available to their patrons the most sought after books. Public libraries, unlike...

Gentlemen: I have transcribed this article from an English paper entitled "The Globe and Traveller" of September 2nd, 1864, of which I have an original in my possession. It is a negotiation interview between Jefferson Davis and Judah Benjamin of the Confederacy, and Colonel Jaques and J. R. Gilmore of the Union. I have emboldened a part that sums up what the South was all about. Warmest Regards ...Brian Lee Merrill **************************************** The Globe and Traveller (England) Friday Evening, September 2, 1864 AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT DAVIS The Atlantic Monthly in an article in the September number gives a narrative...

It is occasionally possible to see through the fog of mysticism, superstition, lies, and the romantic, happy-faced, floating butterfly vision of Abraham Lincoln that has been created by American court historians over the past century. One place to begin is the gem of a book by Pulitzer prize-winning Lincoln biographer David Donald entitled Lincoln Reconsidered. In a particularly important passage Donald quotes Senator John Sherman of Ohio, the brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman and Republican Party powerhouse from the 1860s to the 1890s who was chairman of the U.S Senate Finance Committee during the Lincoln administration, on why the...

<p>BATON ROUGE -- The state's new, lower threshold for drunken driving goes into effect Tuesday, and State Police said Friday they will be ready to enforce the law.</p> <p>"The change to .08 blood alcohol level will not affect how we enforce the law, but it will enhance what we are already doing to save lives on the highways of Louisiana," said State Police Superintendent Col. Terry Landry. "The effects of alcohol on a person at 08. . . . can be just as deadly as they are at .10."</p>

Next to "junk science," which claims that the earth is warming to the point that we will all be burned to a crisp within just a few years, the one thing that I hate most about the age in which we live, an age that renders little to no critical thinking as pertains important issues, is the area of "junk history." There are, more so today than at any other time I think, a few things that invariably pop up in discussions that demonstrate how easy it is to sway a society's thinking on a given topic with just a...

In Tuesday's Washington Post, an editorial urging President Bush to send peacekeepers to civil war-wracked Liberia noted that the country was "founded by freed U.S. slaves." Is that true? Not quite. Although some freed American slaves did settle there, Liberia was actually founded by the American Colonization Society, a group of white Americans—including some slaveholders—that had what certainly can be described as mixed motives. In 1817, in Washington, D.C., the ACS established the new colony (on a tract of land in West Africa purchased from local tribes) in hopes that slaves, once emancipated, would move there. The society preferred this...

We now commence the annual national ritual of noticing that the Declaration of Independence is among the "founding" documents that gave birth to the country. And pundits, following innumerable scholars for 150 years, will twist and mangle the text to discern some other meaning from the document besides the obvious one. In most parts of the world, the Declaration is understood as a bold announcement and explanation, with an underlying rationale of why the British government needed to be thrown off in an act of American secession. That's why the Eastern Europeans throwing off Soviet tyranny used it as their...

Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.' Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the...

June 3 was the birthday of one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. He was a graduate of West Point, a hero of the Mexican War, a U.S. senator, a secretary of war and the president of the Confederate States of America. I'm speaking, of course, of Jefferson Davis. It's unfortunate that we live in an age of ideologues and propaganda. No matter how intelligent, how accomplished, how compassionate, how noble in character, how admired by his contemporaries a man is, if he is on the wrong side of the current politically correct fence, then he's condemned. Even as...

We are here today both to remember and to honor our Confederate forefathers. We remember and honor them, first of all, because they are OURS. They made us what we are. To honor one's forebears is a deep and universal human inclination. General Lee, in his farewell address to his men, told them that their four-year struggle for freedom had been marked by "unsurpassed courage and fortitude" and that their "valor and devotion" had endeared them to their countrymen. Our Confederate forefathers' "valor and devotion" did more than make for themselves a place in the hearts of future generations of...

Since the 2000 presidential election, much attention has been paid to a map showing the sharp geographical division between the two candidates’ support. Gore prevailed in the power- and plunder-seeking Deep North (Northeast, Upper Midwest, Pacific Coast) and Bush in the regions inhabited by productive and decent Americans. There is nothing new about this. Historically speaking, it is just one more manifestation of the Yankee problem. As indicated by these books (listed at the end), scholars are at last starting to pay some attention to one of the most important and most neglected subjects in United States history – the...