Free Republic

For a country formed as a marriage between free and slave states, the Constitution was a compromise. Why are Americans debating whether the Constitution is a pro-slavery document more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery? Can it be that, after decades of disinterest, Americans have suddenly realized history is fascinating?Historical debates are usually fairly esoteric, more likely to bore than to excite the general public. When historical debates inflame passions beyond the circles of academic history, it is a sign that the debate is not really about the past, but about the present. So it goes with the...

The push to derail the Republican tax bill is getting so frenzied, opponents are going beyond hyperbolic in their opposition. The latest of these bloviating, hyperventilating malcontents is Philly.com columnist Will Bunch, who hurriedly typed over the weekend the tax bill is so horrific, only one law trumps it (pun intended). There’s a reason the tax bill is so unpopular. It’s a terrible idea – arguably, if approved, the worst law to be enacted on Capitol Hill since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed the return of captured escaped slaves up North to their whip-cracking masters down South....

Received from a Navy buddy who has since been seduced by the Dark Side. ===================================================== The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too. In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they...

Third Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Jonesboro, Illinois September 15, 1858 MR. DOUGLAS' SPEECH. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before you today in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whig and Democrats differed about a bank, the...

On Monday, June 28, 2010 former Ku Klux Klansman and Senator Robert Byrd passed. In a strange twist of fate the senator's passing occurred on the anniversary of the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. According to Michael Zak, The Fugitive Slave Act was written by a pair of Democrats, Senator James Mason (D-VA) and Senator Andrew Butler (D-SC), had written the Fugitive Slave Act. The bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act was written by a Republican congressman from Ohio, Rufus Spalding and signed into law by Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Let's not forget that it was the Republican Party...