Free Republic

Disenchantment and growing irritation with the U.S. South could lead northern American states to seek a union with Canadian provinces, writes Stéphane Kelly In 1891, the intellectual Goldwin Smith caused a furor when he published Canada and the Canadian Question. He suggested that if Canadians believed in the democratic ideal, they must accept the inevitable: Annexation of Canada by the American republic. The writer noted that the divide created by the English Civil War, which pitted Puritans against Cavaliers, had replicated itself in North America. Canadians embraced the aristocratic ideal of the Cavaliers while Americans held dear the democratic ideal...

A great rift is opening in America's once-impregnable farm lobby. It is a gap between those forms of agriculture that can prosper on their own and the ones that must be perpetually propped up by huge subsidies. This is a critical development if this country is ever going to control the costs of its farm programs and deal fairly with poor countries that want their chance to prosper from global trade. The United States has to acknowledge that it can no longer continue to support hopelessly unprofitable agricultural enterprises, even if they are in states represented by powerful members of...