Free Republic

As Biden speaks at event named for Old Hickory tonight, more appalling stories show party should dump him as icon Spring means that appeals for money are bursting forth from both major political parties. It also means Democratic officials in states and counties around the country are busy getting people out to their major fundraiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. And theyÂ’re bringing in the big guns: Vice President Joe Biden will keynote the South Carolina DemocratsÂ’ dinner tonight.But after an election in which Democrats rode a wave of minority support to keep the White House and Senate, party activists should...

This upcoming Friday, April 5, will be the 5th year anniversary of the death of Charlton Heston, one of the greatest actors of all time. His best known roles include The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Ben-Hur, The Greatest Show on Earth, Midway, Planet of the Apes, and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. But Chuck was also known for his political activism. He was originally a liberal Democrat, even supporting the Gun Control Act of 1968 (when asked why he did that, he replied, “I was young and foolish”). But soon aftewards...

For several generations, Europeans had encroached on Indian lands....exchanging treaty promises and goods for Indian land....But the continuous flow of settlers....caused the treaties to be broken, usually by whites, almost as soon as the signatures were affixed.

I met Senate President Don Gaetz after speaking to the Senate Committee on Healthcare Exchanges. I explained to him that I wanted to teach on nullification and why the Healthcare Act is unconstitutional. He mocked the Founders of the this nation to my face, implying they are irrelevant to the interpretation of the Constituion. He laughed at my support of Constitutional principles. He then shouted out to me as he left the room that he wouldn’t read anything that I sent him. This morning I sent him an email explaining the Founders’ position on State Sovereignty and nullificaion. After sending...

On front page of website, no registration required.Shockingly, neither Carter nor the present occupant of the White House are choices...

Traveled by Native Americans, presidents, generals, gypsies and families seeking a new life in the west, “The Great Road,” known today as Frederick Road or Route 355, provided a path for both the adventurer and the entrepreneur. As the main route northwest from Georgetown, the last port on the Potomac River, it was heavily traveled from the mid 18th century until it was replaced by Interstate 270 in the 1960s. It began as an Indian trail leading from the Piscataway settlement at the mouth of Rock Creek to the great “Conestoga,” a trail that included footpaths and waterways (what we...

“…. “Andrew Jackson: Tea Party President” (The American Spectator October 2011) Robert W. Merry …….compelled to respond. He had to be straightened out about what the TEA party movement… Mr. Merry’s piece…… “Ivory Tower elitist” all over it as it works overtime to spray perfume on a man who was certainly complicit in Aaron Burr’s treasonous plot to make the Louisiana territories his private kingdom. Jackson set the stage for never ending poor relations with South and Central America as well. Merry starts with a straw man premise about TEA party patriots ……. He thinks we are looking for “guidance”...

BACK in the late 1990s, William Kristol and David Brooks, then colleagues at the Weekly Standard, fostered a boomlet of a movement called "national greatness conservatism," the central tenet of which seemed to be that the country didn't rise to sufficient grandeur to satisfy their national aspirations. That was the Clinton era, remember, when the Gross Domestic Product was expanding at an average 3.5 percent a year, and unemployment hovered around 4 percent. Federal coffers were overflowing with cash, and the national debt was actually shrinking. The world was relatively stable, America's global position seemed secure, and young U.S. soldiers...

I figured Andrew Jackson is one the bad guys in history. And I believe people like Glenn Beck hate him. For one thing he was a democrat who help his party gain control that they had for a long time afterward. I figured he was instrumental into ruining the nation into what we have today. I maybe wrong, but I wanted to search him on this website and it seemes every article likes him a lot. How come? Do people like Andrew Jackson like they hate Abe Lincoln? Strange stuff.

The Battle of New Orleans had made Andrew Jackson a national hero overnight. But mere early accomplishments can never fill the void that exists in a lost man's soul. Besides, the humble general had more sense than the editors of Laissez Faire Books concerning the ultimate cause for his victory, acknowledging to a friend, "It appears that the unerring hand of Providence shielded my men from the shower of balls, bombs, and rockets, when every ball and bomb from our guns carried with them a mission of death." Andrew Jackson was better known for his attendance at duels than at...

He was the last president to be a Revolutionary War veteran. Orphaned at 14 by that war, Andrew Jackson went on to be a country lawyer in the pre-Tennessee Southwest Territory. He soon became the state's first U.S. senator, before resigning. He was also a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court and commander of Tennessee's militia. Then, in 1819, with two other men, he founded Memphis. In 1999, Mark Skoda -- now 56 -- moved to Memphis, which set the stage for a new kind of revolution. Nationwide in 2010, feral Jacksonian populism reigned. This was the year of the...

Andrew Jackson would not be "politically correct" in today's world. A Backcountry warrior, made famous by the Battle of New Orleans, and a rough-hewn politician who became America's first Scotch-Irish President, Jackson was also a farmer and a slave-holder. His estate, The Hermitage, in Davidson County, Tennessee, has been preserved -- including some of the log cabins where Jackson's slaves lived. [Vintage photographs]

The State of Arizona passed a law to uphold federal law and to protect their citizens but the liberal DC establishment, instead of supporting the right of Arizona to enact the legislation is acting full bore against them. First, let’s get the media and open border politician's spin corrected. There is nothing in the Arizona law contrary to Federal Law. The State of Arizona is acting in concert and protection of the the US Constitution and law. Today, an article in David Horowitz’s blog describes it. “ Tragically, the very powers that are Constitutionally supposed to protect America from...

Before we even learn the name of the Somali teenage pirate we are reportedly about to bring to trial in the United States, and with Al Qaeda reportedly urging the sea-faring criminals to become genuine terrorists, its time for a brief refresher course on America and its long, rich history hounding and being hounded by with pirates. The following is courtesy of historian George C. Herring’s George C. Herring’s masterful work, “From Colony to Superpower, U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776,” which is part of the Oxford History of the United States.... Even into the 1830s, when America had better established...

Dismissed for 175 years as a fake, a letter threatening the assassination of President Andrew Jackson has been found to be authentic. And, says the director of the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, the writer was none other than Junius Brutus Booth, father of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Dan Feller and his staff solved the mystery of the July 4, 1835, letter to Jackson. The story of their investigation will be featured this summer on PBS' "History Detectives." The letter, which addressed Old Hickory as "You damn'd old Scoundrel," demanded that Jackson pardon two prisoners...

Mr. Dickinson's death arose from a feud with Jackson, then a major general who gladly settled questions of honor with violence. In 1803, he even challenged Gov. John Sevier, a Revolutionary War hero, to a duel. The feud with Mr. Dickinson is generally traced to the aftermath of a forfeited horse race and rumors questioning Jackson's honor... Some historians have written that Mr. Dickinson also insulted Mrs. Jackson, although documents from the time do not reflect that... Tennessee had banned duels, so the men traveled north to Kentucky. When the order came to fire, Mr. Dickinson hit Jackson just beside...

Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by H. W. Brands. Published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, New York. 2005, 560 pages. Part of gaining a deeper understanding of American history is reading presidential biographies. Each biography is not only a look at the person who occupied America's highest office but is a window on the events, individuals and decisions that shaped America's destiny and character. H. W. Brands is a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and is best known for his biography of Benjamin Franklin "The First American," that was a finalist for the...

The American public recognizes that the United Nations has major ethical and leadership problems. This same American public is growing more frustrated with the United States membership in the UN each day. To help this floundering world body, the President of the United States has nominated a man with the two missing elements that the United Nations sorely needs. The Secretary of State on the United States has said that he is the best man for the job. The former Prime Minister of Great Britain has said that he is an extremely good choice for America. On the other hand,...

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - Renovation of former President Andrew Johnson's home has exposed graffiti that Civil War soldiers wrote or scratched into the walls, including someone suggesting that "Andy you'd best skedaddle." Johnson was admired by Union supporters, but detested by many Confederates, and both sides used his home as a headquarters during the Civil War, according to the National Park Service, which acquired the two-story brick home in 1942. Graffiti quotes written or scratched into the plaster walls include: "Shame on you Andy," "Andrew Johnson Traitor of the South," and "Guilty of Treeson." There also are poems, and dedications to...