Free Republic

In his 1861 "Cornerstone Speech", Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stephens said the following: But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock...

On the river boat “River Queen”, in Hampton Roads, President Abraham Lincoln and Sec of State. William Seward met with Confederate VP Alexander Stevens, Asst Sec of War John Campbell Sen Robert Hunter These men met to discuss a possible end to almost 4 years of bloody Civil War. The Hampton Roads Peace Conference lasted about 4 hours and produced no visible results. A detailed account of this event can be found at: https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-hampton-roads-peace-conference.html

...“One cannot question the genuineness of Jefferson’s liberal dreams,” writes historian David Brion Davis. “He was one of the first statesmen in any part of the world to advocate concrete measures for restricting and eradicating Negro slavery.” But in the 1790s, Davis continues, “the most remarkable thing about Jefferson’s stand on slavery is his immense silence.” And later, Davis finds, Jefferson’s emancipation efforts “virtually ceased.” Somewhere in a short span of years during the 1780s and into the early 1790s, a transformation came over Jefferson. The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox,...

This is the smear on Governor Perry this week. It was on FOX News for discussion this morning, and moments are being excerpted in an attempt to show Governor Perry as a drunkard during his speech to this evangelical conservative group in New Hampshire this past week. Among some very serious and important talk (and some Scripture), Governor Perry lightens up for some jesting. You'll see a few minutes of the light-hearted areas on TV and the internet as a "drunken Rick Perry". Make sure you see the entire 25 minute video here of his NH Cornerstone speech to see...

African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant's Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people. The family of Abraham Lincoln himself, when it lived in Pennsylvania in colonial times, owned slaves.[1]...